Kip (unit)

Not to be confused with Kilopond.

A kip is a US customary unit of force. It equals 1000 pounds-force, used primarily by American architects and engineers to measure engineering loads. Although uncommon, it is occasionally also considered a unit of weight, equal to 1000 pounds, i.e., one half of a short ton. One use is as a unit of deadweight to compute shipping charges.

1 kip = 4448.2216 N = 4.4482216 kN

The name comes from combining the words "kilo" and "pound"; it is occasionally called a kilopound. Its symbol is kip, or less frequently, klb. When it is necessary to clearly distinguish it as a unit of force rather than mass, it is sometimes called the kip-force (symbol kipf or klbf). Note that the symbol kp usually stands for a different unit of force, the kilopond or kilogram-force used primarily in Europe prior to the introduction of SI units.

The kip is also the name of another unit of measure formerly used in Malaysia equal to approximately 9.19 kilograms, which is now obsolete.

See also

• Pound (force)
• Short ton-force