kilobyte

kilobyte

See also: Kilobyte

English

Etymology

Coined in the 1960s, from kilo- (“thousand”) +‎ byte.

Noun

kilobyte (plural kilobytes)

1. (computing, especially networking) 1000 (10³) bytes. SI Symbol: kB
   • 1969, Harold R. Dell, HIGH-DENSITY PERMANENT DATA STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM‎, US Patent 3638185:

     The data word processor 606 handles the in-flow and out-flow of byte-oriented input/output data and interleaved signals at a rate of, for example, 500 kilobytes per second. Instruction processing rates of four to eight per microsecond are required for such a data flow.

2. (computing, especially RAM) A unit of storage capacity, equal to 1024 (2¹⁰) bytes : a kibibyte. Frequently abbreviated KB.
   • 1969, Hisashi Horikoshi, MEMORY CONTROL SYSTEM‎, US Patent 3618041:

     It is assumed herein that each block includes 32 bytes, each sector includes 1 kilobyte, the buffer memory 116 includes 4 kilobytes, and read data is represented by one double word or 64 bits, as one word in this case consists of 32 bits.

Synonyms

• kB, KB, ㎅

Coordinate terms

• Previous: byte
• Next: megabyte

Related terms

• kibibyte
• kilobit

Translations

1024 bytes

Arabic: كِيلُوبَايْت‎ m (kilubayt) Catalan: quilooctet m Chinese: Mandarin: (formal) 千字節／千字节 (zh) (qiānzìjié), (common abbreviation, pronounced like English) KB Czech: kilobyte (cs) m, kilobajt m Esperanto: kilobajto, kilobitoko Finnish: kilotavu (fi) French: kilooctet (fr) m Georgian: კილობაიტი (ḳilobaiṭi) German: Kilobyte (de) n Greek: κιλομπάιτ (el) n (kilompáit), χιλιοδυφιοσυλλαβή n (chiliodyfiosyllaví) Hungarian: kilobyte (hu) Italian: kilobyte (it) m Japanese: キロバイト (kirobaito) Korean: 킬로바이트 (ko) (killobaiteu) Macedonian: килобајт m (kilobajt) Malay: kilobait Navajo: kiiłtsohʼííłké Norman: kilobouochie f Polish: kilobajt (pl) m Portuguese: kilobyte m Romanian: kilobyte m, kilooctet m Russian: килоба́йт (ru) m (kilobájt) Spanish: kilobyte (es) m Swedish: kilobyte (sv) Thai: กิโลไบต์ (th) (gì-loo-bái) Uyghur: كىلوبايت‎ (kilobayt)

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Czech

Alternative forms

• kilobajt

Etymology

kilo- +‎ byte

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈkɪlobajt]

Noun

kilobyte m

1. kilobyte

Further reading

• kilobyte in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu
• byte in Akademický slovník cizích slov, 1995, at prirucka.ujc.cas.cz

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Italian

Etymology

From kilo- +‎ byte.

Noun

kilobyte m (invariable)

1. (computing) kilobyte

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Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English kilobyte.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˌkiloˈbajt(ʃ)(i)/

Noun

kilobyte m (plural kilobytes)

1. (computing) kilobyte (one thousand bytes)

Synonyms

• Abbreviations: KB, kB

Coordinate terms

• Multiples of the byte: kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte, yottabyte

Related terms

• kilobit
• kebibyte