trillion

American  

[tril-yuhn] / ˈtrɪl jən /

noun

• trillions,
  plural
• trillion
  plural

1. a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 12 zeros, and in Great Britain by 1 followed by 18 zeros.

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adjective

1. amounting to one trillion in number.

trillion British  

/ ˈtrɪljən /

noun

1. the number represented as one followed by twelve zeros (10 ¹² ); a million million

2. (formerly, in Britain) the number represented as one followed by eighteen zeros (10 ¹⁸ ); a million million million

3. (often plural) an exceptionally large but unspecified number

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determiner

1. 1. amounting to a trillion

      a trillion stars

   2. ( as pronoun )

      there are three trillion

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• trillionth
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• trillion
  plural
• trillions
  plural

Etymology

Origin of trillion

1680–90; < French, equivalent to tr ( i )- tri- + ( m ) illion million

Compare meaning

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

• billion vs. trillion

Explanation

A trillion is 1,000,000,000,000, also known as 10 to the 12th power, or one million million. It’s such a large number it’s hard to get your head around it, so sometimes trillion just means “wow, a lot.” A trillion is bigger than a million, more than a billion, it’s 1,000,000,000,000 (and even or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 in some countries). (Yes, those are 18 zeroes in that last one.) Either way, this is such a large number that it's hard to imagine. Maybe that's why people often use this word in a looser sense, as in "I have a trillion reasons why I like this band!" That meaning is similar to gazillion, bazillion, and zillion, which aren't real numbers.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

trillion trillions

Anthropic is expected to tell investors it sees more than $30 trillion in potential revenue, the Journal reports.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 26, 2026

To lure investors, according to the Wall Street Journal, Anthropic will promise that revenue opportunities are above $30 trillion.

From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026

Both have raised money at unprecedented levels, with Anthropic valued at just under one trillion dollars when it raised $65 billion in May.

From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026

It also means that a vast store of the nation’s wealth — the $12 trillion in home equity owned by those 65 and older — isn’t going to be spent and shared throughout the economy.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 25, 2026

“Did you read over the company’s brochure and the spec sheets? The Nexus-6 brain unit they’re using now is capable of selecting within a field of two trillion constituents, or ten million separate neural pathways.”

From "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick

Chipmakers SK hynix and Samsung led the charge as they clawed back the losses sustained in a sector-wide global rout from the end of June and through July that wiped trillions of dollars off valuations.

From Barron's ● Aug. 13, 2026

Treasury bonds serve as vital collateral for short-term institutional liquidity, and Treasury yields set the benchmark borrowing rates for trillions of dollars in global debt, from mortgages to corporate bonds.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 3, 2026

The bullish earnings narrative for Big Tech requires these companies to achieve newfound operating efficiency even as they spend trillions of dollars in capex over the next few years.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

The bullish earnings narrative requires these companies to achieve newfound operating efficiency even as they spend trillions of dollars in capex over the next few years.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

They’d learned that there were trillions and trillions of stars in the universe, more stars than grains of sand on every beach and desert on earth.

From "I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005" by Lauren Tarshis