Ever wondered why 1000 is written as 1 K and not 1 T since 1000 starts with ‘T’?

Let’s learn why,

‘K’ stands for ‘Kilo’ which means thousand in the Greek language. In mathematics and science, you must have heard the measurements like kilograms (Kg) and kilometres (Km); here ‘kilo’ stands for 1000.

For example, 1 kilogram equals 1000 grams; 1 kilogram equals 1000 meters. Just like you measure the strength of your internet connection in 'kbps', which stands for kilobits per second, where kilo is again equivalent to 1 thousand bps.

The ‘K’ in all of these measurements stands for thousand, and hence, the same ‘K’ is used in finance as 1K, 2K, and so on.

This inclusion of the prefix of this Greek word is worldwide accepted, and hence now everyone uses it interchangeably with thousands.

The Greeks have been influencing the units of measurement that are accepted universally, like ‘M’ for million, which is short for ‘Mega’, and ‘G’ for billion, which is short for ‘Giga’. Units like Mbps, megabits per second, which is equal to 1 million bits per second, and Gbps, gigabits per second, which is equal to 1 billion bits per second.

However, for instance, news headlines are always read as $40B invested in a new project by the government, where we don’t use ‘G’ as an abbreviation for billion and instead use 'B', which is neither Greek nor Roman.