How do you pronounce billion?

The recorded pronunciation is /ˈbɪ(l)jən/.

billion

/ˈbɪ(l)jən/

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: 4.75 in modern English

Syllables: bil-lion
IPA: /ˈbɪ(l)jən/

Scrabble Score

Letters

Syllables

Unique Chars

Meaning

num

Either of two large amounts:

American usage

num

Either of two large amounts:

Dated

num

An unspecified very large number.

Colloquial

Example Sentences

"At the last assessment it [the national debt] amounts to seven billion pounds (£7,000,000,000)."
"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."
"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"
"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."
"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."
"Plaintiff States also receive billions of dollars in funds every year directly from Treasury through BFS under federal grant programs."

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ ▲ Proto-Indo-European *trísinflu. Proto-Indo-European *dwís Proto-Italic *dwis Old Latin duis Latin bisder. French bi- Proto-Indo-European *sem- Proto-Indo-European *sm̥- Proto-Indo-European *-is Proto-Indo-European *-h₂ Proto-Indo-European *-ih₂ Proto-Indo-European *smih₂ Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰes- Proto-Indo-European *-lom Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰéslom ▲ Proto-Indo-European *-ih₂ Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰéslih₂ Proto-Indo-European *smih₂ǵʰéslih₂ Proto-Italic *smīɣeslī Latin mīlle Italian mille Proto-Indo-European *-ōder. Proto-Indo-European *-Hōder.? Latin -ōnem Italian -one Italian milionebor. Old French million Middle French million French millionbf. French -illion French billionbor. English billion From French billion, equivalent to bi- (“two”) + -illion.

Origin

Source language: French

Word Breakdown

Prefix: bi
Root: billion
Suffix: illion

Regional Pronunciation

American English: /ˈbɪ(l)jən/

Usage

Inflected Forms

billions (plural)

Derived Forms

billionaire centibillion decabillion megabillion multibillion multibillions

Phrases

billion-dollar grass billion-dollar question billion laughs Boring Billion golden billion multi-billion coined at same time coined after the series million

Frequently Paired Words

trillion coined at same time zillion coined after the series million quadrillion gazillion same origin -illion

Synonyms

milliard thousand million trillion[short scale]]> gazillion one thousand million 1000000000 one million million 1000000000000

Rhymes With

million brazilian civilian trillion pavilion multimillion killian vermilion reptilian zillion vermillion multibillion