kilowatt
\ki.lo.wat\
The verdict
“kilowatt” is uncommon French (frequency #74,124 among 110,375 “K” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #74,124
- frequency rank, French
- 110,375
- “K” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Unité de mesure de puissance du Système international (SI), valant 10³ watts, et dont le symbole est kW.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | kilowatt |
| Language | French |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | \ki.lo.wat\ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #74,124 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “kilowatt” sits in French frequency
Rare enough to double-check
kilowatt is uncommon French at frequency #74,124 among 110,375 “K” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed \ki.lo.wat\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Unité de mesure de puissance du Système international (SI), valant 10³ watts, et dont le symbole est kW.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for kilowatt, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct French form is kilowatt, spelled K-I-L-O-W-A-T-T.
Definition
- 1Unité de mesure de puissance du Système international (SI), valant 10³ watts, et dont le symbole est kW.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 French corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "kilowatt"?
What does "kilowatt" mean?
How do you pronounce "kilowatt"?
What language does "kilowatt" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “kilowatt”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct French spelling is K-I-L-O-W-A-T-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as \ki.lo.wat\ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more French words and confusable pairs in the same reference. French words
Other uncommon French words near this rank
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.