order of magnitude

British

noun

Also called: order. the approximate size of something, esp measured in powers of 10

the order of magnitude of the deficit was as expected
their estimates differ by an order of magnitude

"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

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

If that is the case, we will have the breaking of a bubble that will be worse in order of magnitude than the 1990s tech bubble.

From Barron's • Apr. 7, 2026

Scott’s philanthropy is on a different order of magnitude, and life on the receiving end of it can be head-spinning.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 8, 2026

In hardware tests and simulations, the 3D chip beats 2D chips by roughly an order of magnitude.

From Science Daily • Dec. 24, 2025

The scale of the current effort, however, is a much larger order of magnitude.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 18, 2025

Their problems are an order of magnitude more serious than math anxiety.

From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023