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
Rhea Mogul, CNN Money, 23 June 2026
Digital computers force all information processing into discrete, high-precision, clocked steps, with billions or trillions of bits flipped every second.
—Rob Toews, Forbes.com, 22 June 2026
Galactic bulges tend to be the oldest parts of galaxies, forming billions of years before the disks, at least in the Milky Way's case.
—Keith Cooper, Space.com, 22 June 2026
Iran, which has pressed for the unfreezing of billions of dollars in assets, has not spoken to the idea of using the funds to purchase American products.
—ABC News, 22 June 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 23 Jun. 2026.
Copy Citation
