billion
Use Billion in a sentence
yən 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.
Related forms
bil·lionth, adjective, noun
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source
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Link To billion
Collins
World English Dictionary
billion (ˈbɪljən) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](http://static.sfdict.com/dictstatic/g/d/dictionary_questionbutton_default.gif) | |
| —n , pl -lions, -lion | |
| 1. | one thousand million: it is written as 1 000 000 000 or 109 |
| 2. | (formerly, in Britain) one million million: it is written as 1 000 000 000 000 or 1012 |
| 3. | (often plural) any exceptionally large number |
| —determiner | |
| 4. | (preceded by a or a cardinal number) |
| a. amounting to a billion: it seems like a billion years ago | |
| b. (as pronoun): we have a billion here | |
| [C17: from French, from | |
| 'billionth | |
| —adj, —n | |
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source
00:10
Billion
is always a great word to know.
So is slumgullion. Does it mean:
| a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc. |
| a fool or simpleton; ninny. |
Etymonline
Word Origin & History
billion
1680s, 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 billion (originally byllion in Chuquet's unpublished "Le Triparty en la Science des Nombres", 1484; copied by De la Roche, 1520), from bi- "two" + (m)illion.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.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Example sentences
The first human genome took fifteen years to decode and cost about a billion dollars.
The economy's collapse has caught up with the billion-dollar campaign.
On television alone, the scenes were witnessed that day by an estimated two billion people-a third of the human race.
Advertising revenue for the broadcast will top well over a half-billion dollars.
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