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
Jennifer Elias, CNBC, 21 Apr. 2026
The variety of organic molecules observed suggests that some chemical diversity has been preserved in ancient Martian sediments despite billions of years of diagenesis (the process by which sediment turns to rock) and radiation exposure.
—Leonard David, Space.com, 21 Apr. 2026
This amazing, self-assembling, signal-processing, direction-switching molecular machine is so powerful yet so spare that, billions of years later, it’s still used by bacteria in virtually every gut and puddle on Earth.
—Quanta Magazine, 20 Apr. 2026
Illinois has generated billions in cannabis sales.
—Sonya M. Harper, Chicago Tribune, 20 Apr. 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 22 Apr. 2026.
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