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billionaire

billionaire

188 3.4
A person who has at least one billion dollars
  • noun
  • /ˈbɪljəˌnɛr/
translation icon : multimillonario
  • First, he was rich, a billionaire by our standards.
  • become a billionaire
  • an American billionaire

Spielberg didn't become a billionaire by making movies, OK.

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Examples

  • He is a self-made billionaire who started his career selling lemonade at fairs.

  • The fabulous fortune of the Texas billionaire H. L. Hunt rested on oil drawn out of the Earth.

    Academic text (1993)
  • Anybody know who this lucky billionaire is?

  • Today, we bring you a story involving a missing Russian billionaire.

  • So what is with this new billionaire obsession with football?

  • How much do billionaires really pay in taxes?

  • He's 28 years old, and in three days he'll be a billionaire when his company, Knox Technologies, goes public.

    Fiction book (2000)
  • CEU, founded by billionaire George Soros, is also accredited in New York State.

    Academic text (2017)
  • Many consider Elon Musk to be the richest billionaire in the world today.

  • The documentary explores the lives of several famous billionaires and their impact on society.

Synonyms

zillionaire
vsbillionaire
  • Informal
3 7.5

A person who has a very large amount of money

is defined by a clear one billion threshold rather than imaginary exaggeration
multibillionaire
vsbillionaire
2 3.7

A person who has several billion dollars in wealth

has at least one billion in assets rather than several billions
trillionaire
vsbillionaire
1 6.5

A person who has at least one trillion dollars or euros

has wealth measured at one billion not at the trillion scale
multi-billionaire
vsbillionaire
1 4.2

A person who has many billions of dollars

has wealth of one billion or more rather than several billions
gazillionaire
vsbillionaire
  • Slang
7.6

Having a huge amount of money

is a precise numeric threshold of one billion rather than vague exaggeration

Antonyms

8 1.0

A person who has very little money and few things

Compounds

A person who has many billions of dollars

How Wealthy

trillionaire
1 6.5
billionaire
188 3.4
millionaire
250 3.7
poor person
8 1.0

Surface Forms

billionaire singular
billionaires plural

Morphology

billionaire = billion (transparent) = billion + aire

Formed by the productive pattern 'number' + '-aire' (as in 'millionaire'), so a learner who knows 'billion' and the '-aire' pattern can infer 'person with a billion'.

Etymology

Billionaire comes from billion plus the ending -aire, like in millionaire. Billion means 'a thousand million' and -aire names a person who has that amount, so a billionaire is someone worth at least a billion units of money.