trillion

American  

[tril-yuhn] / ˈtrɪl yən /

noun

trillions plural

1. a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 12 zeros, and in Great Britain by 1 followed by 18 zeros.

---

adjective

1. amounting to one trillion in number.

trillion British  

/ ˈtrɪljən /

noun

1. the number represented as one followed by twelve zeros (10 ¹² ); a million million

2. (formerly, in Britain) the number represented as one followed by eighteen zeros (10 ¹⁸ ); a million million million

3. (often plural) an exceptionally large but unspecified number

---

determiner

1. 1. amounting to a trillion

      a trillion stars

   2. ( as pronoun )

      there are three trillion

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• trillionth
  noun

Inflected Forms

noun

• trillions
  plural
• trillion
  plural

Etymology

Origin of trillion

1680–90; < French, equivalent to tr ( i )- tri- + ( m ) illion million

Compare meaning

How does trillion compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• billion vs. trillion

Explanation

A trillion is 1,000,000,000,000, also known as 10 to the 12th power, or one million million. It’s such a large number it’s hard to get your head around it, so sometimes trillion just means “wow, a lot.” A trillion is bigger than a million, more than a billion, it’s 1,000,000,000,000 (and even or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 in some countries). (Yes, those are 18 zeroes in that last one.) Either way, this is such a large number that it's hard to imagine. Maybe that's why people often use this word in a looser sense, as in "I have a trillion reasons why I like this band!" That meaning is similar to gazillion, bazillion, and zillion, which aren't real numbers.

Example Sentences

For 2028, Muse said revenue could approach $1.4 trillion.

From MarketWatch • Jun. 8, 2026

What’s Next: New York University professor and valuation maven Aswath Damodaran values SpaceX at about $1.3 trillion, or $99 a share.

From Barron's • Jun. 8, 2026

With a market capitalization of more than $4.6 trillion, Apple is one of the world’s most valuable companies.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 8, 2026

SpaceX is aiming for a $1.77 trillion market value.

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 8, 2026

From the mid-1970s to the end of the 1980s, the amount of money involved in mergers and acquisitions every year on Wall Street increased 2,000 percent, peaking at almost a quarter of a trillion dollars.

From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell