In dictionaries:
International Prototype of the Kilogram
The (referred to by metrologists as the IPK or Le Grand K; sometimes called the ur-kilogram, or urkilogram, particularly by German-language authors writing in English:30) an object whose mass was used to define the kilogram from 1889, when it replaced the Kilogramme des Archives, until 2019, when it was replaced by a new definition of the kilogram based entirely on physical constants.
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