billion

American  

[bil-yuhn] / ˈbɪl jən /

noun

• billions,
  plural
• billion
  plural

1. a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 9 zeros, and in Great Britain by 1 followed by 12 zeros.

2. a very large number.

   I've told you so billions of times.

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adjective

1. equal in number to a billion.

billion British  

/ ˈbɪljən /

noun

1. one thousand million: it is written as 1 000 000 000 or 10 ⁹

2. (formerly, in Britain) one million million: it is written as 1 000 000 000 000 or 10 ¹²

3. (often plural) any exceptionally large number

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determiner

1. (preceded by a or a cardinal number)

   1. amounting to a billion

      it seems like a billion years ago

   2. ( as pronoun )

      we have a billion here

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• billionth
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• billion
  plural
• billions
  plural

Etymology

Origin of billion

1680–90; < French, equivalent to b ( i )- bi- ¹ + -illion, as in million

Compare meaning

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

• billion vs. trillion

Explanation

A billion is 1,000,000,000. There are over 7 billion people in the world, the last time we checked. While billion may sounds like a made-up number like zillion — which just means a lot — it's a very real number, specifically 1,000,000,000. That's a pretty hard number to imagine, but one way to think of it is as a thousand millions. If you have a billion dollars, you're very rich: a billionaire. Money spent by the government is often measured in billions. In England, this word often refers to a different number: 1,000,000,000,000, or one million millions.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

billion billions

The revenue guidance equates to a range of $23.28 billion to $23.51 billion, vs. analyst expectations of $23.65 billion, according to FactSet.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 26, 2026

In his formula, Nvidia’s $700 billion of revenue in two years would require about $2.1 trillion of end demand.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

In its last report, Microsoft said it recorded $24.1 billion of revenue from OpenAI last year, including revenue-sharing payments, along with $6 billion of accounts receivable.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

Li Auto reported quarterly loss of 1.70 billion yuan, deeper than the 1.52 billion yuan loss expected by analysts.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

Inside Morgan Stanley, there was apparently never much question whether the company’s elite risk takers should be allowed to buy $16 billion in subprime mortgage bonds.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis

Now many are pivoting to AI and signing deals with companies such as Anthropic - who are spending billions of dollars on the infrastructure needed to keep up in the AI race.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026

The currency recovered and has held, and billions of dollars have since moved through official channels into food, fuel and medicine.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026

For billions of years, an ancient cluster of stars has been gradually coming apart, shedding stars that now form a faint, narrow ribbon across space.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 24, 2026

The owner of your team also owns another business facing a big legal problem that requires billions to fix.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2026

Falcone would buy billions of dollars in credit default swaps virtually on the spot.

From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis