quintillion

noun quin·til·lion \ kwin-ˈtil-yən \

Updated on: 30 Apr 2018

Definition of quintillion

US : a number equal to 1 followed by 18 zeros — see Table of Numbers; also, British : a number equal to 1 followed by 30 zeros — see Table of Numbers

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quintillion

adjective

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quintillionth

play \kwin-ˈtil-yən(t)th\ adjective or noun

See quintillion defined for kids

Recent Examples of quintillion from the Web

Your chances of filling out a perfect bracket are like 1 in 9.2 quintillion (yes, that's an actual number), so don't sweat it out too much.

— cheryl wray, AL.com, "March Madness 2018: How do I fill out NCAA basketball bracket?," 12 Mar. 2018
This is how the 1S-2S transition in hydrogen has been measured to 4 parts in a quintillion, about 1000 times more precise than the new antihydrogen result, Udem says.

— adrian cho, Science | AAAS, "Atoms and antiatoms haven’t crashed Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity—yet," 4 Apr. 2018
Odds of filling out a perfect bracket are 1 in 9.2 quintillion (9,000,000,000,000,000,000), according to a USA Today article.

— karen pilarski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Wauwatosa man keeps home after no one gets perfect NCAA bracket," 27 Mar. 2018
There is the painstaking work of taxonomists who continue to catalogue the earth's estimated 10 quintillion insects; the Greek island beekeepers; and the Zika-fighting mosquitoes in Brazil.

— andrea gawrylewski, Scientific American, "Bug Lovers, Earth’s Many Apocalypses, the Surprising Minds of Vegetative Patients and Other New Science Books," 1 July 2017
Your odds of filling out a perfect bracket are 1 in 9.2 quintillion (9,000,000,000,000,000,000), according to a USA Today article.

— karen pilarski, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, "Do you have the perfect NCAA bracket? It might win you a $587,000 Wauwatosa home," 14 Mar. 2018
Suddenly, the odds of filling out a perfect bracket go from one in 9.2 quintillion to one in 5.74 billion.

— tom schad, USA TODAY, "NCAA tournament: How mathematicians use models to beat (or at least improve) the odds," 12 Mar. 2018
The gravitational era that begins around 15 trillion years from now could continue for quintillion years and beyond, Laughlin estimates.

— NBC News, "How humans might outlive Earth, the sun...and even the universe," 20 Dec. 2017
There is indeed quite a bit of it – about 7.5 quintillion grains on Earth’s beaches and deserts, according to one estimate.

— eoin o'carroll, The Christian Science Monitor, "It's a small world after all, say scientists warning of sand scarcity," 14 Sep. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'quintillion.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of quintillion

Latin quintus + English -illion (as in million)

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First Known Use: circa 1690

in the meaning defined above

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quintillion

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