sextillion

noun, often attributive sex·til·lion \ seks-ˈtil-yən \

Updated on: 4 Apr 2018

Definition of sextillion

US : a number equal to 1 followed by 21 zeros — see Table of Numbers; also, British : a number equal to 1 followed by 36 zeros — see Table of Numbers

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Recent Examples of sextillion from the Web

Inflation peaked in 2008 at a year-over-year rate of 89 sextillion (that’s 89 with 21 zeros) percent, with one U.S. dollar equaling anything from 71 billion to 2.5 quadrillion Zimbabwean dollars.

— karan mahajan, The New Republic, "After the Strongman," 26 Mar. 2018
In a single second, the authors (an international collaboration working with Brookhaven National Laboratory’s STAR detector) saw the QGP goop rotate a mind-boggling sextillion times — a billion trillions.

— sylvia morrow, Discover Magazine, "The Fastest Fluid," 1 Feb. 2018
If you were compressed into a black hole, for instance, the result would be 1 sextillion times smaller than a grain of sand.

— sophie weiner, Popular Mechanics, "How Big Are Black Holes, Really?," 16 June 2017

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