Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The cardinal number equal to 109.
  • noun Chiefly British The cardinal number equal to 1012.
  • noun An indefinitely large number.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In Great Britain, a million of millions; as many millions as there are units in a million (1,000,000,000,000).
  • noun In France and the United States, a thousand millions (1,000,000,000).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun 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.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun US A milliard, a thousand million: 1 followed by nine zeros, 109.
  • noun obsolete A million million: a 1 followed by twelve zeros, 1012.
  • noun colloquial, plural, hyperbolic A very large number.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the number that is represented as a one followed by 9 zeros
  • adjective denoting a quantity consisting of one million million items or units in Great Britain
  • noun a very large indefinite number (usually hyperbole)
  • adjective denoting a quantity consisting of one thousand million items or units in the United States
  • noun the number that is represented as a one followed by 12 zeros; in the United Kingdom the usage followed in the United States is frequently seen

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, a million million : blend of bi-, second power; see bi– and million.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French billion

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Examples

Comments

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  • Means "trillion" in French.

    July 13, 2009

  • Also means "billion" in French, viz 1 000 000 000 000. Also means "thousand million" in US English.

    July 13, 2009