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billion - 4 dictionary results

bil⋅lion

  [bil-yuhn] noun, plural -lions, (as after a numeral) -lion, adjective
Use billion in a Sentence
–noun
1. a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 9 zeros, and in Great Britain by 1 followed by 12 zeros.
2. a very large number: I've told you so billions of times.
–adjective
3. equal in number to a billion.
Origin:
1680–90; < F, equiv. to b(i)- bi- 1 + -illion, as in million

Related forms:
billionth, adjective, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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bil·lion   (bĭl'yən)   
n.  
  1. The cardinal number equal to 109.
  2. Chiefly British The cardinal number equal to 1012.
  3. An indefinitely large number.

[French, a million million : blend of bi-, second power; see bi-1 and million.]
bil'lion adj.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Billion

Bil"lion\, n. [F. billion, arbitrarily formed fr. L. bis twice, in imitation of million a million. See Million.] According to the French and American method of numeration, a thousand millions, or 1,000,000,000; according to the English method, a million millions, or 1,000,000,000,000. See Numeration.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : billion
Spanish: billón; millardo (Estados Unidos),
German: die Billion; die Milliarde,
Japanese: 10億 (英国で時に兆)
More Translations »

billion 
1690, from Fr. billion (originally byllion in Chuquet's unpublished "Le Triparty en la Science des Nombres", 1484; copied by De la Roche, 1520), from bi- "two" + (m)illion. A million million in Britain and Germany (numeration by groups of sixes), which was the original sense; subsequently altered in Fr. to "a thousand million" (numeration by groups of threes) and picked up in that form in U.S., "due in part to French influence after the Revolutionary War." France then reverted to the original meaning in 1948. British usage is truer to the etymology, but U.S. sense is increasingly common there in technical writing. Billionaire first recorded 1861 in Amer.Eng. The first in the world was likely John D. Rockefeller.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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