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
Eric Lagatta, AZCentral.com, 5 Sep. 2025
But the payments that brought billions in revenue to Tesla will now vanish.
—Chris Isidore, CNN Money, 5 Sep. 2025
The new report focuses more narrowly on the Defense Department and its billions of dollars in annual research funding.
—Didi Tang, Chicago Tribune, 5 Sep. 2025
The 10% stake in Intel will be funded by billions of dollars in grants awarded to the company as part of that law and a related program that funds the domestic production of advanced chips for national security applications, according to the company.
—Morgan Chalfant, semafor.com, 5 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for billion
Cite this Entry
“Billion.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/billion. Accessed 10 Sep. 2025.
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