billion
[bil-yuh n]
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noun, plural bil·lions, (as after a numeral) bil·lion.
a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 9 zeros, and in Great Britain by 1 followed by 12 zeros.
a very large number: I've told you so billions of times.
adjective
equal in number to a billion.
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RELATED WORDS
Nearby words
- billings,
- billings method,
- billings, josh,
- billings, william,
- billingsgate,
- billionaire,
- billionth,
- billiton,
- billman,
- billon
Origin of billion
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for billion
billion
noun plural -lions or -lion
determiner
Word Origin for billion
C17: from French, from bi- 1 + -llion as in million
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
billion
1680s, from French billion (originally byllion in Chuquet's unpublished "Le Triparty en la Science des Nombres," 1484; copied by De la Roche, 1520), from bi- "two" (see bi-) + (m)illion. A million million in Britain and Germany (numeration by groups of sixes), which was the original sense; subsequently altered in French to "a thousand million" (numeration by groups of threes) and picked up in that form in U.S., "due in part to French influence after the Revolutionary War" [David E. Smith, "History of Mathematics," 1925]. France then reverted to the original meaning in 1948. British usage is truer to the etymology, but U.S. sense is said to be increasingly common there in technical writing.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper