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billion.

Either of two large amounts:

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

num/ˈbɪljən//ˈbɪ(l)jən/Australia, colloquial
  1. Either of two large amounts: a thousand million (logic: 1,000 × 1,000²): 1 followed by nine zeros, 10⁹.

    US
  2. Either of two large amounts: A million million (logic: 1,000,000²): a 1 followed by twelve zeros (10¹²); a thousand milliard.

    dated
  3. An unspecified very large number.

    colloquial · excessive
    There were billions of people at the concert.
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ ▲ Proto-Indo-European *trísinflu. Proto-Indo-European *dwís Proto-Italic *dwis Old Latin duis Latin bisder. French bi- Proto-Indo-European *sem- Proto-Indo-European *sm̥- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ih₂ Proto-Indo-European *smih₂ Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰes- Proto-Indo-European *-lom Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰéslom ▲ Proto-Indo-European *-ih₂ Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰéslih₂ Proto-Indo-European *smih₂ǵʰéslih₂ Proto-Italic *smīɣeslī Latin mīlle Italian mille Proto-Indo-European *-ōder. Proto-Indo-European *-Hōder.? Latin -ōnem Italian -one Italian milionebor. Old French million Middle French million French millionbf. French -illion French billionbor. English billion From French billion, equivalent to bi- (“two”) + -illion.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.