Meaning of word billion

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Billion is a word for a large number, and it has two distinct definitions:

• 1,000,000,000, i.e. one thousand million, or 10⁹ (ten to the ninth power), as defined on the short scale. This is its only current meaning in English.^[1][2]
• 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million million, or 10¹² (ten to the twelfth power), as defined on the long scale. This number, which is one thousand times larger than the short scale billion, is now referred to in English as one trillion. However, this number is the historical meaning in English for the word «billion» (with the exception of the United States), a meaning which was still in official use in British English until some time after World War II.

American English adopted the short scale definition from the French (it enjoyed usage in France at the time, alongside the long-scale definition).^[3] The United Kingdom used the long scale billion until 1974, when the government officially switched to the short scale, but since the 1950s the short scale had already been increasingly used in technical writing and journalism. ^[4]

Other countries use the word billion (or words cognate to it) to denote either the long scale or short scale billion. (For details, see Long and short scales § Current usage.)

Milliard, another term for one thousand million, is extremely rare in English, but words similar to it are very common in other European languages.^[5][6] For example, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Hebrew (Asia), Hungarian, Italian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese (although the expression mil milhões — a thousand million — is far more common), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish (although the expression mil millones — a thousand million — is far more common), Swedish, Tajik, Turkish, Ukrainian and Uzbek — use milliard, or a related word, for the short scale billion, and billion (or a related word) for the long scale billion. Thus for these languages billion is a thousand times larger than the modern English billion.

History[edit]

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word billion was formed in the 16th century (from million and the prefix bi-, «two»), meaning the second power of a million (1,000,000² = 10¹²). This long scale definition was similarly applied to trillion, quadrillion and so on. The words were originally Latin, and entered English around the end of the 17th century. Later, French arithmeticians changed the words’ meanings, adopting the short scale definition whereby three zeros rather than six were added at each step, so a billion came to denote a thousand million (10⁹), a trillion became a million million (10¹²), and so on. This new convention was adopted in the United States in the 19th century, but Britain retained the original long scale use. France, in turn, reverted to the long scale in 1948.^[3]

In Britain, however, under the influence of American usage, the short scale came to be increasingly used. In 1974, Prime Minister Harold Wilson confirmed that the government would use the word billion only in its short scale meaning (one thousand million). In a written answer to Robin Maxwell-Hyslop MP, who asked whether official usage would conform to the traditional British meaning of a million million, Wilson stated: «No. The word ‘billion’ is now used internationally to mean 1,000 million and it would be confusing if British Ministers were to use it in any other sense. I accept that it could still be interpreted in this country as 1 million million and I shall ask my colleagues to ensure that, if they do use it, there should be no ambiguity as to its meaning.»^[4]

See also[edit]

• Names of large numbers

References[edit]

English[edit]

English numbers ^(edit)

←  1,000,000 (106)	←  100,000,000 (108)	1,000,000,000 (109)	1012  → [a], [b]	1015  → [a], [b]
Cardinal: billion, milliard, thousand million     Ordinal: billionth, milliardth     Multiplier: billionfold, milliardfold     Metric collective prefix: giga-     Metric fractional prefix: nano-     Number of years: giga-annum, gigayear

English numbers ^(edit)

←  1,000,000 (106)	[a], [b], [c] ←  1,000,000,000 (109)	1012	1015  → [a], [b]	1018  → [a], [b]
Cardinal: trillion, billion     Ordinal: trillionth, billionth     Multiplier: trillionfold, billionfold     Metric collective prefix: tera-     Metric fractional prefix: pico-

Etymology[edit]

From French billion, from bi- (“two”) +‎ -illion.

Pronunciation[edit]

• enPR: bĭl’yən, IPA^(key): /ˈbɪljən/
• Rhymes: -ɪljən
• Hyphenation: bil‧lion

Noun[edit]

billion (plural billions)

cardinal number

109	Previous:	million
Next:	trillion

cardinal number

1012	Previous:	milliard
Next:	billiard

1. (US, modern British & Australian, short scale) a thousand million (logic: 1,000 × 1,000²): 1 followed by nine zeros, 10⁹; a milliard

   • 1921 January 24, “National Finances”, in Devon and Exeter Gazette, page 5:

     At the last assessment it [the national debt] amounts to seven billion pounds (£7,000,000,000).

   • 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist‎^[4], volume 407, number 8837, page 74:

     In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result.

   • 2019 October, Dan Harvey, “HS2 costs rise as schedule slips”, in Modern Railways, page 9:

     However, despite the prospect of HS2 being curtailed and the revelation that the programme is late and billions over budget, for now, at least, work on the scheme appears to be business as usual

2. (dated, British & Australian, long scale) A million million (logic: 1,000,000²): a 1 followed by twelve zeros; 10¹²

   • 1778, Maseres, Francis, “A Method of Finding, by the Help of Sir Isaac Newton’s Binomial Theorem, a Near Value of the very Slowly Converging Infinite Series […]”, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society‎^[5], volume lxviii, number xli:

     n = 1,000,000,000,000, that is, = a billion, or the square of a million

   • 2000 November 8, Ladyman, Stephen, “[Speech to the House of Commons]”, in Hansard‎^[6]:

     There is a bill to be picked up for cleaning the former Soviet countries of £1 billion. By that I mean a British billion, because when I was little I was told that a billion was a million million and then the Americans said that it was a thousand million. Well, I am talking about a million million pounds worth of clean-up to be done.

3. (colloquial, hyperbolic) An unspecified very large number.

   There were billions of people at the concert.

Synonyms[edit]

• (10⁹): milliard, thousand million
• (10¹²): trillion (short scale)

Derived terms[edit]

[edit]

• trillion, coined at same time
• zillion, coined after the series million, billion, trillion, quadrillion (modern slang)
• gazillion, from same origin
• -illion, from same origin

Descendants[edit]

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

• (short scale) Previous: million. Next trillion.
• (long scale) Previous: milliard. Next billiard.
• ISO prefix: giga-

Danish[edit]

Noun[edit]

billion

1. 10¹²

Declension[edit]

French[edit]

French numbers ^(edit)

←  1,000,000 (106)	←  1,000,000,000 (109)	1012	1015  → [a], [b], [c]	1018  → [a], [b], [c]
Cardinal (traditional spelling): un billion, mille milliards     Cardinal (post-1990 spelling): un-billion, mille-milliards     Ordinal: billionième, millième de milliardième
French Wikipedia article on 1012

Etymology[edit]

From bi- (“two”) +‎ -illion; i.e., a million million.

Coined by Jehan Adam in 1475 as by-million.^{[1] [2] [3]}
Rendered as byllion by Nicolas Chuquet in 1484, in his article “Triparty en la science des nombres”.^{[4] [5]}

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /bi.ljɔ̃/

Numeral[edit]

billion m (plural billions)

1. trillion (10¹²)
2. (dated) billion (10⁹)

[edit]

• trillion, coined at same time

Descendants[edit]

• → Catalan: bilió

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• “billion”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Middle French[edit]

Noun[edit]

billion m (plural billions)

1. billion, a million-million, 10¹²
   • 1520, Étienne de La Roche, L’arismethique novellement composee, page 6

     ung billion vault mille milliers de millions

     a billion is equivalent to a thousand thousands of millions

Last Updated:
3 Apr 2023
— Updated example sentences

• 1
  billion
  
  

  Персональный Сократ > billion

• 2
  billion
  
  

  Британцы и американцы используют эти слова по-разному: 1 billion (USA) = a thousand millions тысяча миллионов, 1 billion (GB) = a million millions миллион миллионов, 1 trillion (USA) = a million millions миллион миллионов, 1 trillion (GB) = a billion millions миллиард миллионов. Таким образом, британский вариант означает большее количество в каждом случае. Однако, американские варианты начинают доминировать. Интересен совет, данный редактором The Times своим сотрудникам в 1992 г.:

  Trillion is the American for a thousand billion. If the word is used in stories about the American or Japanese budgets, this must be explained. Britain is not yet so extravagant as to need the word, so avoid it in home stories. — Триллион это американская тысяча миллиардов. Если это слово используется в статьях об американском или японском бюджетах, его нужно пояснять. Британия ещё не столь расточительна, чтобы нуждаться в таком слове, поэтому избегайте его в статьях на внутриэкономические темы.

  English-Russian dictionary of expressions > billion

• 3
  billion
  
  

  [ˈbɪljən]

  billion num. card., n биллион billion num. card., n амер. миллиард billion миллиард (США) billion триллион (Великобритания)

  English-Russian short dictionary > billion

• 4
  billion
  
  

  Англо-русский синонимический словарь > billion

• 5
  billion
  
  

  1. миллиард
  2. биллион

  Англо-русский словарь нормативно-технической терминологии > billion

• 6
  billion
  
  

  Большой англо-русский и русско-английский словарь > billion

• 7
  billion
  
  

  1. n амер. миллиард

  2. n триллион, число 10

  English-Russian base dictionary > billion

• 8
  billion
  
  

  English-Russian big medical dictionary > billion

• 9
  billion
  
  

  [ʹbıljən]

  2) триллион, число 1012

  НБАРС > billion

• 10
  billion
  
  

  ˈbɪljən(англ) биллион, (амер) миллиард

  Англо-русский словарь экономических терминов > billion

• 11
  billion
  
  

  1) биллион

  2) млд
  3) млрд
  4) миллиард

  Англо-русский технический словарь > billion

• 12
  billion
  
  

  Англо-русский словарь нефтегазовой промышленности > billion

• 13
  billion
  
  

  Универсальный англо-русский словарь > billion

• 14
  billion
  
  

  [`bɪljən]

  биллион

  миллиард

  Англо-русский большой универсальный переводческий словарь > billion

• 15
  billion
  
  

  English-russian dictionary of physics > billion

• 16
  billion
  
  

  English-Russian electronics dictionary > billion

• 17
  billion
  
  

  The New English-Russian Dictionary of Radio-electronics > billion

• 18
  billion
  
  

  1) биллион

  * * *

  (n) биллион; миллиард

  * * *

  биллион; миллиард

  * * *

  [bil·lion || ‘bɪljən]
  миллиард, биллион, несметное количество

  * * *

  биллион

  миллиард

  * * *

  числ. колич.;
  1) биллион (миллион миллионов)
  2) амер. миллиард (тысяча миллионов)

  Новый англо-русский словарь > billion

• 19
  BILLION
  
  

  (биллион) Формально, одна тысяча миллионов (10) в США и один миллион миллионов (10) в Великобритании; в настоящее время почти повсеместно равен одной тысяче миллионов.

  Финансы: англо-русский толковый словарь > BILLION

• 20
  billion
  
  

  English-Russian dictionary of technical terms > billion

миллиард, биллион, несметное количество, миллиард, биллион, несметное количество

существительное

- амер. миллиард
- триллион, число

Словосочетания

a huge budget surplus of over £16 billion — огромный профицит бюджета, превышающий шестнадцать миллиардов фунтов стерлингов  
a trade behemoth that shipped abroad $800 billion worth of goods — торговый гигант, который отправил за границу товаров на сумму восемьсот миллиардов долларов США  
a $1.9 billion fraud scheme — махинация на сумму 1,9 млрд долл.  
billion cubic meters per annum — миллиардов кубометров в год  
billion cubic meters per year — миллиардов кубометров в год  
billion cubic meters/yr — миллиардов кубометров в год  
billion cubic meters — миллиардов кубометров  
billion dollar grass — ежовник хлебный; просо китайское; просо японское  
billion electron volts accelerator — ускоритель на энергию в миллиард электронвольт  
billion electron volts — число гигаэлектронвольт; гигаэлектрон-вольт; 109 эВ  
billion floating point operations per second — миллиард операций с плавающей запятой в секунду; гигафлопс; Гфлопс  
billion instructions per second — число миллиардов операций в секунду; млрд. операций в секунду  

Примеры с переводом

Примеры, ожидающие перевода

Возможные однокоренные слова

billy  — походный котелок, дубинка

How do you abbreviate billion? The word billion has a few common abbreviations.

The most common abbreviations for billion are,

• B
• bn
• bil.

The most common of these three abbreviations is probably “B”.

When to Use This Abbreviation

These abbreviations may be used in mathematics texts or formal writing within the context of records such as banks or other companies where large numbers are documented.

They may also be used in communication, such as memos and email, between workers that are familiar with their meaning or newspaper headlines in order to save space.

In most other instances, the word or the number should be written in its complete form.

What Does Billion Mean?

Definition of billion: The cardinal number billion can function as a noun or and adjective and refers to the number one thousand million.

Like million, it is also commonly used as hyperbole for a huge amount of something.

For example,

• Donald Trump made billions in his own companies before becoming a presidential candidate. (Literal)
• Kim Kardashian has a billion pairs of shoes in her closet. (Hyperbole)

Outside Examples of Billion

• The U.S. government moved on Friday to temporarily halt an oil pipeline in North Dakota that has angered Native Americans . . . The government’s action reflected the success of growing protests over the proposed $3.7 billion pipeline crossing four states which has sparked a renewal of Native American activism. –New York Post

• The Federal Reserve said Thursday that consumer borrowing rose by $17.7 billion in July, up from a $14.5 billion increase in June. –Washington Post

Summary

There are few different ways to abbreviate the word billion. The most common abbreviations of billion are,

• B
• Bn
• bil.

The most common abbreviation is “B”.

Contents

• 1 When to Use This Abbreviation
• 2 What Does Billion Mean?
• 3 Outside Examples of Billion
• 4 Summary

In the modern world, we regularly encounter the words million and billion, and businesses, governments, astronomers and journalists often think in the millions, billions or even trillions. However, the word million has been around in English only since the late fourteenth century. The word billion was not introduced in the French language until the fifteenth century and didn’t find its way into English until the end of the seventeenth century, which is fairly late in the history of counting. What words were used before this time to talk about large numbers? This article looks at how we started using million and billion and how the meaning of billion has changed.

Before the Words Million and Billion

In fact, the largest number with a single-word name in ancient Greek was 10,000. It was called murios and borrowed into Late Latin as myrias. From myrias we get the English word myriad meaning “an extremely large number or amount”. The ancients also had the “myriad myriad” (10,000 × 10,000) or one hundred million. Larger numbers were described in more roundabout ways or by using mathematical notation; indeed, one million is expressed in Latin as decies centena milia or 10 × 100 × 1,000, and Archimedes (3rd century BCE) had to establish his own system of mathematical notation in order to systematically express numbers larger than the “myriad”. He explains this system in The Sand Reckoner, a treatise that sets out to quantify all the grains of sand in the universe in order to challenge the idea that such a quantity was too large to be counted.

What Exactly Is a Billion?

For those who were taught numbers before the 1970s, the answer to this question may well have been different depending on where you received your schooling. While it is accepted in English today that one billion equals 10⁹, it is important to be aware, especially when reading older texts, that in the United Kingdom billion hasn’t always meant 10⁹. Until the 1970s, when the United Kingdom officially adopted the American definition of billion, this word represented 10¹² in British English.

This difference resulted from the emergence of two competing systems for naming large numbers. A fifteenth-century mathematician, Nicolas Chuquet, established one system by combining Latin numerical prefixes (bi-, tri-, etc.) with the suffix -illion to form powers of one million. In this system, a billion equals one million times one million (or one million squared, 10¹²) and a trillion equals one million cubed (10¹⁸). This is known as the long scale, which was used in the United Kingdom until they followed the United States in 1974 by officially adopting the short scale, a system born in France in the seventeenth century and popular in the French-speaking world until midway through the nineteenth century. The short scale uses the same names (billion, trillion, quadrillion, etc.) but assigns different values to them, with one billion equalling a thousand million, one trillion equalling a thousand billion, and so forth, the logic being that the prefix attached to -illion represents n in the formula 10³⁽ⁿ⁺¹⁾. For example, quadrillion, with the prefix quadri- meaning “four” is equal to 10³⁽⁴⁺¹⁾ or more simply 10¹⁵. The short scale is used today throughout the English-speaking world, whereas the French language has settled on the long scale, so that an English billion is translated in French as un milliard and a French billion (also called mille milliards or “one thousand milliards” in English) is translated in English as a trillion.
The differences between the long scale and the short scale are summarized in this table:

* SI refers to the International System (of Units), a system of measurement widely used in science and international trade.

Abbreviated Forms

People often wonder if there is a correct or best way to abbreviate million and billion when writing about figures.

The most commonly seen short forms for thousand, million, billion and trillion in North America and the United Kingdom, respectively, are outlined in the table below.

Notice that M appears twice in the table above, to represent both thousand and million. Some (especially older) finance texts use M for thousand and MM for million, which can be a source of confusion as M is now widely used to denote million in North America.

Of the style guides that address spacing in this context, most (AP Stylebook, Chicago Manual of Style, Canadian Style, The Economist Style Guide) say to leave no space (100bn, for example), although it is also common in books and newspaper articles to see the abbreviation preceded by a space.

Since there is no universally accepted way of abbreviating these words, the best practice is to be consistent with whatever system of short forms you choose and to ensure that the meanings of your chosen short forms are clear to your audience—for example by establishing at some point in the text that M stands for million, and so forth. Most style guides agree that it is best to spell out these words in full where possible, and to use the abbreviations where spacing is limited (e.g. in headlines and tables) or when figures are repeated often. The Guardian and The Telegraph spell out thousand, million, etc. in full when referring to people and animals and use the abbreviated forms only when discussing inanimate objects or in financial contexts. Scientific texts, on the other hand, avoid appellations like million, billion and trillion and instead use scientific notation when writing about very large and very small numbers. Scientific notation represents numbers in powers of ten, so that 650 billion can be written as 650 × 10⁹ or as 6.50 × 10¹¹.