zillion
Americannoun
plural
zillions,plural
zillionadjective
noun
determiner
Etymology
Origin of zillion
First recorded in 1930–35; jocular alteration of million, billion, etc.
Explanation
A zillion is a huge but nonspecific number. If your favorite café is so crowded that there's barely room to stand, let alone find a place to sit, you might say there are a zillion people in there. Use zillion when there are so many things or people that it would be hard to count them all. Zillion sounds like an actual number because of its similarity to billion, million, and trillion, and it is modeled on these real numerical values. However, like its cousin jillion, zillion is an informal way to talk about a number that's enormous but indefinite.
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.
“I hadn’t seen it in a zillion years, and when I saw it, I understood it a little bit more. It made me feel tense, but I also thought, ‘Oh, interesting.’
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 3, 2026
“So I don’t need to travel around with a zillion people.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 20, 2025
God forbid you brave the approximately zillion streaming services out there to find something new.
From Salon • Dec. 20, 2024
I saw a toddler careen around the display cases, and pictured a skyscraper toppling and shattering into a zillion tiny pieces.
From Seattle Times • May 27, 2024
“Earth to Fern. Everything okay? You look like you’re a zillion miles away.”
From "The Wrong Way Home" by Kate O’Shaughnessy
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
