zillion
Americannoun
-
zillions,
plural
-
zillion
plural
adjective
noun
determiner
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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.
See Examples For:
It’s one of a zillion reasons he’s sailing into Newport, alongside fellow inductee Mary Carillo.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 25, 2026
“Things hadn’t splintered out into a zillion niche locations just quite yet,” Adkins said.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2026
I bet the dorms are nicer, and not everyone needs to go to a school with a zillion people, many of whom are deranged.
From Slate ● Jun. 12, 2025
God forbid you brave the approximately zillion streaming services out there to find something new.
From Salon ● Dec. 20, 2024
When Florida saw them running toward her, she felt as if she would break apart into a zillion pieces, and all those pieces would scatter into the air and disappear into the clouds.
From "Ruby Holler" by Sharon Creech
Ghibli and Pokémon iconography may be broadly recognizable, but Lego’s appeal, represented by its zillions of plastic blocks and many movies and TV series, transcends nations.
From Salon ● Apr. 26, 2026
And when we say a few, we mean zillions.
From Seattle Times ● May 16, 2024
After what seemed like zillions of attempts by many hands to fix that 1981 show, the director Maria Friedman figured it out, locating its long-lost core in Jonathan Groff’s mesmerizing, furious performance.
From New York Times ● Dec. 4, 2023
With the board that tried to chasten him swapped out, Altman has a lot of leeway to make occasional principled stands while making zillions of dollars, or not.
From Slate ● Nov. 27, 2023
She imagined flames everywhere, reaching into the sky amid the zillions of buildings in Tokyo.
From "A Place to Belong" by Cynthia Kadohata
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.
