bn

See also: Bn, BN, B.N., .bn, bn., and Bn.

Translingual

Etymology

Abbreviation of English Bengali, from Classical Persian بَنْگَالَه (bangāla), from Middle Bengali বাঙ্গালা (baṅgala).

Symbol

bn

1. (international standards) ISO 639-1 language code for Bengali.

See also

• Wiktionary’s coverage of Bengali terms

English

Symbol

bn

2. Billion.

   Alternative forms: bn., bln

   Holonyms: tn, trn

   2. (usually) Billion short scale.

      Synonym: B

      Holonyms: T, trn

      Meronyms: mn, mn., mln, mln., M

      • 2007 December 5, Randeep Ramesh, “Speed limits rise as India falls in love with the car”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

        The £4bn expressways form a diamond linking Delhi with the country's three other largest cities, Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta, marking the beginning of more than £35bn of road projects.

      • 2025 July 31, Reporting staff, “Who will pay for the trillion-dollar AI boom? A technological revolution meets a financial one”, in The Economist‎^[2], archived from the original on 31 July 2025:

        This year companies will spend $400bn on the infrastructure needed to run artificial-intelligence (AI) models. Predictions of the eventual bill are uniformly enormous. Analysts at Morgan Stanley reckon $2.9trn will be spent on data centres and related infrastructure by the end of 2028; consultants at McKinsey put it at $6.7trn by 2030. Like a bad party at a good restaurant, nobody is quite sure who will pick up the tab.

   4. (rare) Billion long scale.

Adjective

bn (not comparable)

2. Initialism of brand new.

Anagrams

• N.B., NB, n.b., nB, nb

Egyptian

Etymology

Related to (and probably developed from) earlier nn (“not”). The spelling with b- may reflect a graphic phenomenon rather than a sound change. Compare the Late Egyptian development of bw from Earlier Egyptian nj.

Pronunciation

• (modern Egyptological) IPA^(key): /bɛn/
  • Conventional anglicization: ben

Particle

 proclitic

1. (Late Egyptian) not; negates the adverbial sentence/first present, the third future, and the optative
2. (Late Egyptian) not; negates a nominal sentence
3. (Late Egyptian, with a following noun or pronoun) without; there not being any …

Usage notes

The negative constructions with this particle are isomorphic to the corresponding positive constructions without it; they are formed by simply prepending bn to the start of the clause. In the negated adverbial and nominal sentences, occasionally another negation particle, jwnꜣ, is used with bn, discontinuously following the negated element. In higher linguistic registers nn (“not”) is sometimes used instead of bn.

References

• Junge, Friedrich (2005), Late Egyptian Grammar: An Introduction, second English edition, Oxford: Griffith Institute, pages 113, 115, 117, 123–124, 140, 169–170

Latin

Adverb

bn

1. abbreviation of bene

Romanian

Adverb

bn

1. (text messaging) abbreviation of bine (“well”)

Adjective

bn m or f or n (indeclinable)

1. (text messaging) abbreviation of bine (“good”)

Spanish

Adverb

bn

1. (Internet slang, text messaging) abbreviation of bien

Adjective

bn m or f (masculine and feminine plural bns)

1. (Internet slang, text messaging) abbreviation of bien

Noun

bn

1. (Internet slang, text messaging) abbreviation of bien

Vietnamese

Phrase

bn

1. initialism of bao nhiêu