billion
noun
Did you know?
How much is a billion? It might depend on whom you ask. Billion was borrowed from French in the late 1600s to indicate the number one million raised to the power of two, or a million million—a number represented by a 1 followed by 12 zeros. However, the French later changed their naming conventions so that a billion became a thousand million (a 1 followed by 9 zeros) and a trillion became a thousand thousand million (or a million million, the old billion). The French have since returned to the older system, but it was this new system that was adopted by American English speakers in the 1800s. In Britain, the newer system has seen increasing use since the 1950s, but the older sense is still sometimes used there as well.
Examples of billion in a Sentence
Joel Rose,
NPR,
1 July 2026
The patient becomes the integration layer for a system that has spent billions digitizing itself but has not reliably connected itself.
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Sachin H. Jain,
Forbes.com,
1 July 2026
The latest twist comes as Dakar seeks to untangle itself from a debt crisis that has plagued its economy since 2024, when the government uncovered billions of dollars in undisclosed loans, forcing the IMF to suspend lending.
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Jenny Vaughan,
semafor.com,
1 July 2026
Federal prosecutors in Minnesota allege billions of dollars in taxpayer money may have been lost to fraud in several high-risk programs in recent years, including childcare centers and programs for children with autism.
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Laura Geller,
CBS News,
1 July 2026
See All Example Sentences for billion
Cite this Entry
“Billion.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/billion. Accessed 3 Jul. 2026.
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