Kilowatt

Definitions

1. One thousand (10³) watts, an amount of power large enough to power such things as a typical home appliance (e.g., a microwave oven, a toaster, or a hair dryer). (Consuming 1 kilowatt during a duration of 1 hour consumes 1 kilowatt-hour of energy.)
2. Catachresis for kilowatt-hour.
   informal

Equivalents

Examples

“Holonyms: MW, megawatt < GW, gigawatt < TW, terawatt < PW, petawatt”

“Meronyms: mW, milliwatt < W, watt”

“And one California kilowatt equals 3 East Coast KWs. And—as everybody knows that—we, on the East Coast, are the only legal ones.”

“Each turbogenerator consisted of a steam turbine, powered by 900 psi of superheated steam, that was coupled by a set⟳ of reduction gears to a General Electric marine alternating-current generator operating at 1,800 rpm. Each generator had a capacity of 2,000 kilowatts of three-phase power at 450 volts and 60 hertz. The main 450-volt switchboard was energized by the two turbogenerators. The emergency switchboard, in the emergency generator room, was fed from the main switchboard through an electrical tie.”

CEFR level