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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.

The U.S. military would be dealing with an order of magnitude more targets—and a People’s Liberation Army exploiting its own AI.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 27, 2026

With “We the People,” Lepore has composed a companion piece to “These Truths,” her 2018 dash across U.S. history, but her latest work is the stronger book by an order of magnitude.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 15, 2025

“Transformational, on the order of magnitude of the advent of e-commerce itself.”

From Salon • May 2, 2025

That’s an order of magnitude more housing than is built or preserved every year through the slow, inefficient low-income housing tax credit, or LIHTC, the nation’s largest affordable-housing creation program.

From Slate • Sep. 24, 2024

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