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
Andrew Unterberger, Billboard, 10 Oct. 2025
Although Mexico has recently replaced China as the top source of foreign goods shipped to the United States, America depends on China for hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods.
—Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN Money, 10 Oct. 2025
The president's latest threats are disrupting, at least briefly, what had been a sustained rally in tech, built on hundreds of billions of dollars in planned spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure.
—Ari Levy,jordan Novet, CNBC, 10 Oct. 2025
The White House has also said its decision to freeze transportation funding in Chicago and New York and cancel billions of dollars in Biden-era energy project grants are a continuation of their push to shrink the size and scope of the federal bureaucracy.
—NPR, 10 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for billion
Cite this Entry
“Billion.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/billion. Accessed 13 Oct. 2025.
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