billion

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See also: Billion

English[edit]

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia
English numbers (edit)
 ←  1,000,000 (106)  ←  100,000,000 (108) 1,000,000,000 (109) 1012  → [a], [b] 1015  → [a], [b]
    Cardinal: billion, milliard, thousand million
    Ordinal: billionth, milliardth
    Multiplier: billionfold, milliardfold
    Metric collective prefix: giga-
    Metric fractional prefix: nano-
    Number of years: giga-annum, gigayear
English numbers (edit)
 ←  1,000,000 (106) [a], [b], [c] ←  1,000,000,000 (109) 1012 1015  → [a], [b] 1018  → [a], [b]
    Cardinal: trillion, billion
    Ordinal: trillionth, billionth
    Multiplier: trillionfold, billionfold
    Metric collective prefix: tera-
    Metric fractional prefix: pico-

Etymology[edit]

From French billion, from bi- (“two”) +‎ -illion.

Pronunciation[edit]

  • enPR: bĭl'yən, IPA(key): /ˈbɪljən/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪljən
  • Hyphenation: bil‧lion

Numeral[edit]

billion (plural billions)

cardinal number
109 Previous: million
Next: trillion
cardinal number
1012 Previous: milliard
Next: billiard
  1. (US, modern British & Australian, short scale) a thousand million (logic: 1,000 × 1,0002): 1 followed by nine zeros, 109; a milliard
    • 1921 January 24, “National Finances”, in Devon and Exeter Gazette, page 5:
      At the last assessment it [the national debt] amounts to seven billion pounds (£7,000,000,000).
    • 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist‎[4], volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
      In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result.
    • 2019 October, Dan Harvey, “HS2 costs rise as schedule slips”, in Modern Railways, page 9:
      However, despite the prospect of HS2 being curtailed and the revelation that the programme is late and billions over budget, for now, at least, work on the scheme appears to be business as usual
  2. (dated, British & Australian, long scale) A million million (logic: 1,000,0002): a 1 followed by twelve zeros; 1012
    • 1778, Francis Maseres, “A Method of Finding, by the Help of Sir Isaac Newton's Binomial Theorem, a Near Value of the very Slowly Converging Infinite Series [...]”, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society‎[5], volume lxviii, number xli:
      n = 1,000,000,000,000, that is, = a billion, or the square of a million
    • 2000 November 8, Stephen Ladyman, “[Speech to the House of Commons]”, in Hansard‎[6]:
      There is a bill to be picked up for cleaning the former Soviet countries of £1 billion. By that I mean a British billion, because when I was little I was told that a billion was a million million and then the Americans said that it was a thousand million. Well, I am talking about a million million pounds worth of clean-up to be done.
  3. (colloquial, hyperbolic) An unspecified very large number.
    There were billions of people at the concert.

Synonyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Related terms[edit]

  • trillion, coined at same time
  • zillion, coined after the series million, billion, trillion, quadrillion (modern slang)
  • gazillion, from same origin
  • -illion, from same origin

Descendants[edit]

Translations[edit]

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

See also[edit]

Danish[edit]

Noun[edit]

billion

  1. 1012

Declension[edit]

Declension of billion
common
gender 		Singular Plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative billion billionen billioner billionerne
genitive billions billionens billioners billionernes

French[edit]

French numbers (edit)
 ←  1,000,000 (106)  ←  1,000,000,000 (109) 1012 1015  → [a], [b], [c] 1018  → [a], [b], [c]
    Cardinal (traditional spelling): un billion, mille milliards
    Cardinal (post-1990 spelling): un-billion, mille-milliards
    Ordinal: billionième, millième de milliardième
French Wikipedia article on 1012

Etymology[edit]

From bi- (“two”) +‎ -illion; i.e., a million million.

Coined by Jehan Adam in 1475 as by-million.[1] [2] [3] Rendered as byllion by Nicolas Chuquet in 1484, in his article “Triparty en la science des nombres”.[4] [5]

Pronunciation[edit]

Numeral[edit]

billion m (plural billions)

  1. trillion (1012)
  2. (dated) billion (109)

Related terms[edit]

Descendants[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Bibliothèque St Geneviève, Paris, MS Français 3143 - original French manuscript by Jehan Adam
  2. ^ (please provide the title of the work)‎[1], accessed 3 July 2008, archived from the original on 2007-09-30
  3. ^ Lynn Thorndike, “The Arithmetic of Jehan Adam, A.D. 1475,” Science and Thought in the Fifteenth Century
  4. ^ Chuquet, Nicolas (1484) Triparty en la science des nombres (ISSN 9012-9458), Bologna (Italy): Aristide Marre, published 1880
       Idem (accessed 2008-03-01), “Nicolas Chuquet's manuscript”, in (please provide the title of the work)‎[2], Published by www.miakinen.net
  5. ^ Idem (accessed 2008-03-01), “Nicolas Chuquet's chapter”, in (please provide the title of the work)‎[3], Transcription by Michael Florencetime

Further reading[edit]

Middle French[edit]

Noun[edit]

billion m (plural billions)

  1. billion, a million-million, 1012
    • 1520, Étienne de La Roche, L'arismethique novellement composee, page 6:
      ung billion vault mille milliers de millions
      a billion is equivalent to a thousand thousands of millions
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