From time to time, I have encountered the abbreviation "CKT" for "circuit".
No common language (English, German, French, Spanish) has a word with K for circuit.
What is the meaning of this?
Asked
Active
Viewed 2,738 times
2 Answers
7
This site:
Makes the claim that it comes from MIL-STD-12:
A copy of MIL-STD-12 is provided at:
In there you can see the CKT abbreviation:
This is a very old (and now obsolete) MIL-STD but why is likely anyone's guess. In my experience there is often little logic to things standardized by the US Military either historically or currently.
jwh20
- 7,917
- 1
- 17
- 28
2
I suspect it came from the pronunciation.
The "c" in the middle of circuit is pronounced as a "hard c" which sounds the same as a "k". So "ckt" is a reasonable representation of the three most important sounds in the word circuit.
It's also quite possible that "cct" was already taken when the abreviation was introduced. MIL-STD-12 has "cct" as "circle cutting" which seems likely to be a term that was already in use before electronic circuits became a thing.
Peter Green
- 22,193
- 1
- 39
- 82