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million

[mil-yuhn]

noun

a cardinal number, a thousand times one thousand.

a symbol for this number, as 1,000,000 or M̅.

millions, a number between 1,000,000 and 999,999,999, as in referring to an amount of money: His fortune was in the millions of dollars.

the amount of a thousand thousand units of money, as pounds, dollars, or francs: The three Dutch paintings fetched a million.

a very great number of times: Thanks a million.

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the million(s), the mass of the common people; the multitude: poetry for the millions.

COLLAPSE

adjective

amounting to one million in number.

amounting to a very great number: a million things to do.

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Million is always a great word to know.

So is doohickey. Does it mean:

a stew of meat, vegetables, potatoes, etc.

a gadget; dingus; thingumbob.

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Origin:
1350–1400; Middle English milioun < Middle French < early Italian millione, equivalent to mille thousand (< Latin ) + -one augmentative suffix

Related forms

mul·ti·mil·lion, noun

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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To million

Example Sentences

But such expeditions are expensive-a million dollars a pop is not untypical-and archaeology is not a well-resourced profession.

One-fifth of all public school students-ten million children-live in rural areas.

Army didn't bother to properly test five million body armor plates that were supposed to protect soldiers on the battlefield.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

million (ˈmɪljən)

—n , pl -lions, -lion
1.	See also number the cardinal number that is the product of 1000 multiplied by 1000
2.	a numeral, 1 000 000, 10⁶, M, etc, representing this number
3.	informal (often plural) an extremely large but unspecified number, quantity, or amount: I have millions of things to do

—*determiner* (preceded by a or by a numeral)
4.	a. amounting to a million: a million light years away
	b. (as pronoun): I can see a million under the microscope
5.	informal (Austral) gone a million done for; sunk

Related: mega-

[C17: via Old French from early Italian millione, from mille thousand, from Latin]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Etymonline

Word Origin & History

million

mid-14c., from O.Fr. million (late 13c.), from It. millione (now milione), lit. "a great thousand," augmentative of mille "thousand," from L. mille. Used mainly by mathematicians until 16c. India, with its love of large numbers, had names before 3c. for numbers well beyond a billion. The ancient Greeks

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had no name for a number greater than ten thousand, the Romans for none higher than a hundred thousand. "A million" in Latin would have been decies centena milia, lit. "ten hundred thousand." Million to one as a type of "long odds" is attested from 1761.

COLLAPSE

American Heritage

Idioms & Phrases

million

see feel like oneself (a million dollars); look like a million dollars; one in a million.