quintillion

American  

[kwin-til-yuhn] / kwɪnˈtɪl yən /

noun

quintillions plural

1. a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 18 zeros, and in Great Britain by 1 followed by 30 zeros.

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adjective

1. amounting to one quintillion in number.

quintillion British  

/ kwɪnˈtɪljən /

noun

1. US and Canadian word: nonillion.  (in Britain, France, and Germany) the number represented as one followed by 30 zeros (10 ³⁰ )

2. Former Brit word: trillion.  (in the US and Canada) the number represented as one followed by 18 zeros (10 ¹⁸ )

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• quintillionth
  noun
• quintillionth
  adjective

Inflected Forms

noun

• quintillions
  plural
• quintillion
  plural

Etymology

Origin of quintillion

1665–75; < Latin quīnt ( us ) fifth + -illion (as in million )

Example Sentences

“It’s not going to be 9 quintillion to 1, but it will still be billions to 1.”

From MarketWatch • Mar. 18, 2026

Kader said the energy carried by the coronal gas is equivalent to 10 quintillion hydrogen bombs exploding every second.

From Science Daily • Jan. 10, 2026

Europe recently unveiled a rival, Jupiter, housed in western Germany, also able to perform at least one quintillion calculations per second, which is equivalent to about a million smartphones.

From Barron's • Nov. 26, 2025

There are more than 10 quintillion insects on Earth, 200 million for every human.

From Science Magazine • Mar. 29, 2024

They estimate our sun burns up thirty quintillion cubic feet of itself annually, and 18,000,000 of suns are doing the same, making the equivalent of a world destroyed every year and a sun every decade.

From The Universe a Vast Electric Organism by Warder, George Woodward