kilometersized

Kilometersized is an English adjective used to describe objects or features whose dimensions are on the order of kilometers, typically ranging from about 1 km to several tens of kilometers. It is applied to length, width, or overall extent when scale matters for comparison with smaller, meter-sized features or larger, megameter-scale objects.

Standard spellings are kilometer-sized in American English or kilometre-sized in British English. The single-word form kilometersized is rare and generally avoided in formal writing; hyphenation improves readability and aligns with common compounding conventions for unit-based adjectives.

Common contexts include astronomy and planetary science, where researchers describe kilometer-sized asteroids or kilometer-scale craters, as well as geology and geography when characterizing landforms or impact features. The term can also appear in science communication to convey scale without numeric figures, for example: a kilometer-sized impact basin. In many cases, kilometer-scale is preferred when emphasizing the approximate scale rather than a precise size, and similar constructions such as meter-sized or centimeter-sized appear more frequently in formal texts.

Etymology and usage notes: kilometersized is formed by combining a unit noun (kilometer) with the adjective suffix -sized. In formal writing, hyphenated forms (kilometer-sized, kilometre-sized) are typically favored over the closed, single-word variant. The choice between kilometer-sized and kilometer-scale often depends on whether a concrete size or a general scale is being emphasized. See also kilometer-scale, metre-related scale terms, and size descriptions.