Billion Meaning
/ˈbɪljən/Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
numEither of two large amounts:
numEither of two large amounts:, a thousand million (logic: 1,000 × 1,000²): 1 followed by nine zeros, 10⁹.
Sentence Examples
The generous dentist contributed some two billion yen to charity.
The plan announced Tuesday calls for $54 billion in tax cuts.
Worldwide sales look set to top $1 billion.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The company's annual revenue reached over one ____ dollars for the first time.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The world population reached eight ____ people several years ago.
Word Origin & History
From French billion, equivalent to bi- (“two”) + -illion.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"At the last assessment it [the national debt] amounts to seven billion pounds (£7,000,000,000)."
— 1921 January 24, “National Finances”, in Devon and Exeter Gazette, page 5:
"In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result."
— 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
"However, despite the prospect of HS2 being curtailed and the revelation that the programme is late and billions over budget, for now, at least, work on the scheme appears to be business as usual"
— 2019 October, Dan Harvey, “HS2 costs rise as schedule slips”, in Modern Railways, page 9:
"Micron said in a statement that it would bring extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology to Japan, becoming the first semiconductor company to do so, and expected to invest up to 500 billion yen ($3.6 billion) with support from the Japanese government."
— 2023 May 18, Reuters, “Chipmakers look to Japan as worries about China grow”, in CNN Business:
"The ChatGPT service which serves as Web front-end to GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 was the fastest-growing service in history to break the 100 million user milestone in January and had 1 billion visits by February 2023."
— 2023 October 30, Herbold et al., “A large-scale comparison of human-written versus ChatGPT-generated essays” (18617), in Scientific Reports, volume 13, page 1:
Explore More B1 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The company's annual revenue reached over one ____ dollars for the first time.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The world population reached eight ____ people several years ago.