million

[ mil-yuh n ]

/ ˈmɪl yən /

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR million ON THESAURUS.COM

noun, plural mil·lions, (as after a numeral) mil·lion.

a cardinal number, a thousand times one thousand.

a symbol for this number, as 1,000,000 or M̅.

millions, a number between 1,000,000 and 999,999,999, as in referring to an amount of money: His fortune was in the millions of dollars.

the amount of a thousand thousand units of money, as pounds, dollars, or francs: The three Dutch paintings fetched a million.

a very great number of times: Thanks a million.

the million(s), the mass of the common people; the multitude: poetry for the millions.

adjective

amounting to one million in number.

amounting to a very great number: a million things to do.

Nearby words

milliner, millinery, milling, milling machine, millington, million, million electron volts, millionaire, millionairess, millionfold, millionth

Origin of million

1350–1400; Middle English milioun < Middle French < early Italian millione, equivalent to mille thousand (< Latin) + -one augmentative suffix

Related formsmul·ti·mil·lion, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for million

Added to drinking water at concentrations of around one part per million, fluoride ions stick to dental plaque.
Anti-Fluoriders Are The OG Anti-Vaxxers|Michael Schulson|July 27, 2016|DAILY BEAST
According to the USDA, student participation began to fall, with 1.4 million students opting out of the lunch program entirely.
The Republican War on Kale|Patricia Murphy|January 7, 2015|DAILY BEAST
In 2008, Huckabee raised a little over $16 million, with less than $55,000 coming from political action committees.
Can Huckabee Convert the GOP’s Moneymen?|Lloyd Green|January 4, 2015|DAILY BEAST
By contrast, John McCain, the eventual GOP nominee, had raised approximately $12.7 million in the first quarter of 2007 alone.
Can Huckabee Convert the GOP’s Moneymen?|Lloyd Green|January 4, 2015|DAILY BEAST

Travel Noire fellows earned about a half million travel miles in 2014.
‘We Out Here’: Inside the New Black Travel Movement|Charlise Ferguson|January 4, 2015|DAILY BEAST
New Bedford's loss alone was twenty-three vessels, which, with their outfits, were valued at more than a million dollars.
The Sea Rovers|Rufus Rockwell Wilson
There comes a break in the Record of the Rocks that may represent several million years.
A Short History of the World|H. G. Wells
The total number of flowing bores in the colony was given as 440, with a yield of water of nearly 266½ million gallons a day.
Our First Half-Century|Government of Queensland
Half a million of these went over in the first thirteen months, the others in the last six months.
Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War, Volume XII|Various
There, a million million feathery daisies sway and dance in the breeze, lifting their snowy wheels to the blue June sky.
Ladies-In-Waiting|Kate Douglas Wiggin

British Dictionary definitions for million

million

/ (ˈmɪljən) /

noun plural -lions or -lion

the cardinal number that is the product of 1000 multiplied by 1000See also number (def. 1)

a numeral, 1 000 000, 10 6, M, etc, representing this number

(often plural) informal an extremely large but unspecified number, quantity, or amountI have millions of things to do

determiner

(preceded by a or by a numeral)

amounting to a milliona million light years away
(as pronoun)I can see a million under the microscope

gone a million Australian informal done for; sunk

Related formsRelated prefix: mega-

Word Origin for million

C17: via Old French from early Italian millione, from mille thousand, from Latin

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

Word Origin and History for million

million

late 14c., from Old French million (late 13c.), from Italian millione (now milione), literally "a great thousand," augmentative of mille "thousand," from Latin mille, which is of uncertain origin. Used mainly by mathematicians until 16c. India, with its love of large numbers, had names before 3c. for numbers well beyond a billion. The ancient Greeks had no name for a number greater than ten thousand, the Romans for none higher than a hundred thousand. "A million" in Latin would have been decies centena milia, literally "ten hundred thousand." Million to one as a type of "long odds" is attested from 1761. Related: Millions.

Idioms and Phrases with million

million

see feel like oneself (a million dollars); look like a million dollars; one in a million.

million