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 (1,000,000 2 = 10 12). This long …

A billion is a large number equal to 1,000,000,000 (one followed by nine zeros). Learn the definition, place value chart, facts, examples, and more.

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.

Large numbers are numbers above one million that are usually represented either with the use of an exponent such as 109 or by terms such as billion or thousand millions that frequently differ from …

Word forms: billions language note: The plural form is billion after a number, or after a word or expression referring to a number, such as 'several' or 'a few'.

(Definition of billion from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

Illustrated definition of Billion: 1,000,000,000 A thousand millions: 1,000 x 1,000,000 = 1,000,000,000 Which is a 1 followed by 9...

billion A billion is a thousand million, or 1,000,000,000. The website gets almost a billion visits each month. Be Careful! Don't add '-s' to billion when you put another number in front of it. In January …

Mar 2, 2026 · 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.

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.