billion

[bil-yuh n] /ˈbɪl yən/
noun, plural billions (as after a numeral) billion.
1.
a cardinal number represented in the U.S. by 1 followed by 9 zeros, and in Great Britain by 1 followed by 12 zeros.
2.
a very large number:
I've told you so billions of times.
adjective
3.
equal in number to a billion.
Origin
1680-90; < French, equivalent to b(i)- bi-1 + -illion, as in million
Related forms
billionth, adjective, noun
Examples from the web for billion
  • There will soon be seven billion people on the planet.
  • The economy's collapse has caught up with the billion-dollar campaign.
  • Rounding principles that sensibly apply to a couple of pennies don't automatically carry over to two hundred billion dollars.
  • The spacecraft has found extensive ridges along the planet's surface, made as it cooled and shrank over its four billion years.
  • It is estimated to bring the state several billion dollars in tourism every year.
  • Seafood is the sole or primary source of protein for more than a billion people worldwide.
  • Advertising revenue for the broadcast will top well over a half-billion dollars.
  • The next doubling, to four billion, took only forty-four years.
  • World population, now over six billion, will continue to increase-to not much more than nine billion by many estimates.
  • The first human genome took fifteen years to decode and cost about a billion dollars.
British Dictionary definitions for billion

billion

/ˈbɪljən/
noun (pl) -lions, -lion
1.
one thousand million: it is written as 1 000 000 000 or 109
2.
(formerly, in Britain) one million million: it is written as 1 000 000 000 000 or 1012
3.
(often pl) any exceptionally large number
determiner
4.
(preceded by a or a cardinal number)
  1. amounting to a billion: it seems like a billion years ago
  2. (as pronoun): we have a billion here
Derived Forms
billionth, adjective, noun
Word Origin
C17: from French, from bi-1 + -llion as in million
Word Origin and History for billion
n.

1680s, from French billion (originally byllion in Chuquet's unpublished "Le Triparty en la Science des Nombres," 1484; copied by De la Roche, 1520), from bi- "two" (see bi-) + (m)illion. A million million in Britain and Germany (numeration by groups of sixes), which was the original sense; subsequently altered in French to "a thousand million" (numeration by groups of threes) and picked up in that form in U.S., "due in part to French influence after the Revolutionary War" [David E. Smith, "History of Mathematics," 1925]. France then reverted to the original meaning in 1948. British usage is truer to the etymology, but U.S. sense is said to be increasingly common there in technical writing.