Definitions for billion
ˈbɪl yənbil·lion

Princeton's WordNetRate this definition:1.0 / 1 vote

1. billion, one million million, 1000000000000noun

   the number that is represented as a one followed by 12 zeros; in the United Kingdom the usage followed in the United States is frequently seen

2. million, billion, trillion, zillion, jillion, gazillionnoun

   a very large indefinite number (usually hyperbole)

   "there were millions of flies"

3. billion, one thousand million, 1000000000adjective

   the number that is represented as a one followed by 9 zeros

4. billionadjective

   denoting a quantity consisting of one thousand million items or units in the United States

5. billionadjective

   denoting a quantity consisting of one million million items or units in Great Britain

WikipediaRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Billion

   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. 1,000,000,000,000, 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). 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. 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. 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, 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.

ChatGPTRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. billion

   A billion is a number equivalent to one thousand million (1,000,000,000) in the US and many other countries, or one million million (1,000,000,000,000) in the UK before 1974. It's typically used in the context of finance, population and other quantities to denote a very large amount.

Webster DictionaryRate this definition:4.0 / 2 votes

1. Billionnoun

   according to the French and American method of numeration, a thousand millions, or 1,000,000,000; according to the English method, a million millions, or 1,000,000,000,000. See Numeration

Chambers 20th Century DictionaryRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. Billion

   bil′yun, n. a million or thousand thousand of millions (1,000,000,000,000); or, according to the French method of numeration, one thousand millions (1,000,000,000). [L. bi-, twice, and Million.]

Surnames Frequency by Census RecordsRate this definition:0.0 / 0 votes

1. BILLION

   According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Billion is ranked #134712 in terms of the most common surnames in America.
   
   The Billion surname appeared 125 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 0 would have the surname Billion.
   
   81.6% or 102 total occurrences were White.
   8% or 10 total occurrences were of Hispanic origin.
   7.2% or 9 total occurrences were Black.

Matched Categories

1. • Large Indefinite Quantity

British National Corpus

1. Spoken Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'billion' in Spoken Corpus Frequency: #2140

2. Written Corpus Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'billion' in Written Corpus Frequency: #3868

3. Nouns Frequency

   Rank popularity for the word 'billion' in Nouns Frequency: #913

How to pronounce billion?

1. Alex

   US English

   David

   US English

   Mark

   US English

   Daniel

   British

   Libby

   British

   Mia

   British

   Karen

   Australian

   Hayley

   Australian

   Natasha

   Australian

   Veena

   Indian

   Priya

   Indian

   Neerja

   Indian

   Zira

   US English

   Oliver

   British

   Wendy

   British

   Fred

   US English

   Tessa

   South African

How to say billion in sign language?

Numerology

1. Chaldean Numerology

   The numerical value of billion in Chaldean Numerology is: 4

2. Pythagorean Numerology

   The numerical value of billion in Pythagorean Numerology is: 1

Examples of billion in a Sentence

1. Chief Executive Dave Hager:

   With the highly accretive sale of Access, Devon's divestiture program is now complete with proceeds totaling $ 3.2 billion, surpassing the top end of our $ 2 billion to $ 3 billion guidance range.

2. Michael Gapen:

   We believe meeting the 1.6 billion euros in payments to the IMF by the end of June will be difficult. Payments of 3.5 billion euros on bonds held by the ECB on July 20 appear even more unlikely, without an agreement, Greece could descend into what would effectively be an exit from the euro area, where defaults and capital controls become a permanent feature.

3. Friday Santos:

   Currently at Harbor City Capital, I manage a 1.5 billion fund, right?, and I know how to manage it well. I give record returns to anybody who watches this, they’ll understand. I’m giving, a 12% fixed yield income return a year, which nobody in the market’s giving four and we’re giving 12. We’re also giving up to 20 to 26% in IRR return on our investors’ capital. So if there’s something I know how to do, it’s manage dollars and grow them.

4. Brent Sohngen:

   Our estimate is about a fifth of what was found in previous work showing that deforestation has contributed 484 billion tons of carbon - a third of all manmade emissions - since 1900.

5. Stephen Baron:

   QFIIs are allowed to place far larger trades when accessing the market, so were firms able to move half a billion U.S. dollars in and out of China at a day's notice, this is far more than can be done through RQFII or Stock Connect and would show a real commitment to increasing the convertibility of the yuan.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

References

1. ^ Princeton's WordNet
   http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=billion
2. ^ Wikipedia
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billion
3. ^ ChatGPT
   https://chat.openai.com
4. ^ Webster Dictionary
   https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/billion
5. ^ Chambers 20th Century Dictionary
   https://www.gutenberg.org/files/37683/37683-h/37683-h.htm#:~:text=billion
6. ^ Surnames Frequency by Census Records
   https://www.census.gov/topics/population/genealogy/data/2010_surnames.html