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
Molly Parks, The Washington Examiner, 18 May 2026
Will yet another program among thousands, and billions more in taxpayers’ dollars spent, solve anything?
—Kerry Jackson, Oc Register, 18 May 2026
With more than four million followers and billions of views across platforms, Garg has built a global fanbase through her sharp, deeply relatable observations on family, culture, and modern life.
—Matt Grobar, Deadline, 18 May 2026
Musk filed his lawsuit in 2024, accusing Altman and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman of unjustly enriching themselves, and OpenAI of breaching its duty as a nonprofit by starting a for-profit wing and taking billions in investment from Microsoft (also named as a defendant).
—Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 18 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for billion
Cite this Entry
“Billion.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/billion. Accessed 19 May. 2026.
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