billion
- noun
- /ˈbɪljən/
- The private sector is investing billions of dollars in a fleet of Arctic tankers.
- billions of dollars
- billions of pounds
- spend billions
So the sun is something like a billion billion billion tons of mostly hydrogen gas.
- So the sun is something like a billion billion billion tons of mostly hydrogen gas.
- And you that have social networks that connect billions of people.
- So it took several billion years to make the metal that you're wearing today.
- Who is manufacturing billions of flamethrowers?
- I mean, you know, we see billions and billions of dollars going to Ukraine, going to Israel.
- So right now there are billions or maybe even trillions, but at least billions of galaxies that would be fun to explore.
- And we've got evidence of ancient rock, ancient microbial life on Earth going back billions of years.
- That idea is so powerful because it impacted people all around the world, billions of people.
- We're all Stardust because all of our complex atoms began in supernovas many billions of years ago.
- It would have been simple life when conditions started to degrade, which was less than a billion years after the planet had formed.
- There was, there was a billion pounds drug.
- You've built the American people out of billions of dollars.
Examples
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450,000 small farms of twelve acres or less produce billions of pounds of chocolate each year.
Academic text (2008) -
"Do you know how many planets there are? There are billions of planets," he said.
Fiction book (1993) -
l put my company, my name, billions of dollars on the line.
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We're spending billions of dollars.
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But the truth of the matter is we are billions of unique life forms living in this realm.
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The governments of the world spent billions on medicine, welfare, charity.
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There is every reason to think that billions of barrels of oil are there for the taking.
Academic text (2011) -
I mean, you know, we see billions and billions of dollars going to Ukraine, going to Israel.
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The company reported profits of over billion dollars last year.
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In the latest report, scientists projected that the cost of climate change could reach trillions, with damages estimated in the billion range annually.
Synonyms
A number equal to one million million, written as 1,000,000,000,000
A number equal to 1,000,000,000 written as one followed by nine zeros
A number that equals one thousand million and is the same as a billion
A number equal to one followed by twelve zeros
Compounds
- Specialized
A measure of how many billion math calculations a computer does each second
A rough annual grass grown for edible seeds, animal feed, and wildlife food
How Many
Surface Forms
Etymology
Billion has the parts bi- 'two' and million, and in older British use it meant 'one million million', 1,000,000,000,000, because it was like the 'second' power of a million. That older meaning can make old British texts confusing today, since many places now use billion for 'one thousand million'.