Word Finder - billion

definition

(modern British & Australian, short scale) a thousand million (logic: 1,000 × 1,000^2): 1 followed by nine zeros, 109; a milliard

definition

(British & Australian, long scale) A million million (logic: 1,000,000^2): a 1 followed by twelve zeros; 1012

definition

An unspecified very large number.

example

There were billions of people at the concert.

In 2006, roughly a billion people had access to the Internet.

I look for the day when a billion planets are populated with a billion people each.

She couldn't fathom the enormity of a billion souls like the one she'd touched.

The United Nations has estimated that earth's population will pass nine billion by 2050, and ten billion by 2100.

The approximate value of the world's oyster crop approaches f4,000,000 annually, representing over 30,000,000 bushels, or nearly Io billion oysters.

The two assertions are not to be reconciled by pointing out that Professor Tornebohm underestimated, for instance crediting the United States with only 1 1 billion tons, whereas the United States Geological Survey's expert credits that country with from ten to twenty times this quantity; nor by pointing out that only certain parts of Europe and a relatively small part of North America have thus far been carefully explored for iron ore, and that the rest of these two continents and South America, Asia and Africa may reasonably be expected to yield very great stores of iron, and that pyrite, one of the richest and most abundant of ores, has not been included.

From the record of actual exports and a comparison of the most authoritative estimates of total production, it may be said that from 1848 to 1856 the yield was almost certainly not less than $450,000,000, and that about 1870 the billion dollar mark had been passed.

But the inventors of our age have put a billion transistors on an area the size of a postage stamp.

Given these agricultural strengths, is there anyone who believes the United States alone couldn't produce an extra $365 billion worth of food, at full retail price, if there were a ready buyer for it?

A unit of length, which is often used in measuring stellar distances, is the light year or distance that light travels in a year; it is rather less than six billion miles.

The next name is billion, which in Great Britain properly means a million million, and in the United States (as in France) a thousand million.

One tiny percent sounds so innocuous, whereas $1 billion is a colossal sum.

Sprint Nextel's $ 6.5 billion purchase of iDEN affiliate Nextel Partners has met approval and will now go ahead.

Performing three songs for fifteen minutes in front of a global audience of 3 billion is not altruistic.

Even at the retail price, we could feed all the world's hungry for a billion dollars a day or $365 billion a year.

As of the end of 2012, the Internet has more than two billion users.

Billion put royal for business absolute's half make at business manager Anne.

The defense appropriation also includes $ 10 billion for systems to protect against ballistic missiles.

We had a big debate in this country in the early 1980s about the Chrysler Corp. and giving federal bailouts for a billion dollars.

We have sent Congress a $ 1.5 billion for my department's efforts to combat bioterrorism.

The research also shows that brits will spend about 23 billion this year in getting married.

Revenue at Merrill's retail brokerage rose 5 percent to $ 2.8 billion, buoyed by higher interest income.

Along with the NSE, the companies listed on the BSE have a combined market capitalization of US$ 125.5 billion.

Consider a photon emitted by a galaxy a billion years ago, now caught on a photographic plate on Earth.

With the eradication of polio and the eventual cessation of polio immunization, the world will save US $ 1.5 billion per year.

The Bretton Woods Institutions should also aim at providing an extra 50 billion pounds a year to halve poverty.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has agreed to buy CBOT Holdings for $ 8 billion to create a global derivatives powerhouse.

According to F&C, £ 44 billion has been invested in commercial property over the last year, 25% more than last year.

We spend 25 billion Pounds a year servicing public debt.

At a distance of 1 billion light-years, Mrk 205 is a relatively nearby quasar.

Of our US$ 8 billion fuel subsidy in 2004, only 8.5 percent of this amount ever reached the poorest quintile.

We went from spending 2.4 billion reais on family farming to 9 billion.

As counsel to the issuer, an $ 8.8 billion warehouse funding facility backed by real estate related assets.

The Afghan rebels received about $ 3 billion from the CIA.

Lloyds ' $ 28 billion offer was initially rebuffed by Abbey.

For the first time, it incorporates a balance sheet disclosing debtors and some £ 45 billion of accrued revenue receivable.

Be able to to seek health by state sen half a billion.

Now a billion or more can achieve that dream, and I foresee a time not far off when everyone on the planet can.

By 1973 it was calculated to more than a million digits, in 1983 more than ten million digits, in 1987 more than one hundred million digits, in 1989 more than one billion digits, and in 1997 more than fifty billion digits.

These robots can be powered by computers capable of performing a billion calculations a second.

But imagine the difference if the world had ten billion healthy, well-educated people!

Global Crossing, a long-distance telecoms carrier once valued at some $ 50 billion, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

In the US, schooling is a $ 650 billion marketable commodity to be traded for a profit.

Dhlakama said Renamo now had two billion meticais (about $ 100,000) available to organize the congress.

You are the final competitor; you have beaten contestants from a system-wide population of nearly 700 billion.

Astute Class Submarine BAE Systems is the prime contractor for the Astute Class of submarine under a contract worth around £ 2 billion.

Procter & Gamble are a multi billion dollar multi-national animal testing corporation.

Every year we drink 31 billion cups of coffee in the UK!

The loss to the economy of premature death from alcohol misuse is around £ 2.4 billion each year.

The average cost to make these homes decent is £ 16,000 each, or some £ 43 billion in total.