{UAH} WORD OF THE DAY February 28, 2019----billion

WORD OF THE DAY February 28, 2019

billion    noun | BILL-yun     Definition   1 US : a number equal to 1,000 million; also, British : a number equal to 1,000 milliard   2 : a very large number   Scroll down for more about billion      TRENDING NOW: churlish perdition trenchant con man SEE ALL      PEOPLE ARE READING   On 'Hopepunk,' 'Mannerpunk,' and a Range of Punky Genres       'Grift' — Video Word of the Day 2/27/2019     7 Phrases That Are Just So Metal       When Body Parts Are Also Verbs         WORD GAMES AND QUIZZES: WEEKLY CHALLENGE   February 2019 Words of the Day Quiz   The "we still have another month of winter" quiz     PLAY NOW     Nailed this quiz? We have plenty more to try!  TAKE ME THERE         Did You Know?   How much is a billion? It might depend on whom you ask. Billion was borrowed from French in the late 1600s to indicate the number one million raised to the power of two, or a million million—a number represented by a 1 followed by 12 zeros. However, the French later changed their naming conventions so that a billion became a thousand million (a 1 followed by 9 zeros) and a trillionbecame a thousand thousand million (or a million million, the old billion). The French have since returned to the older system, but it was this new system that was adopted by American English speakers in the 1800s. In Britain, the newer system has seen increasing use since the 1950s, but the older sense is still sometimes used there as well.     Examples of BILLION   If you were to count to a billion at the rate of one number per second, it would take you over 31 and a half years to finish.   "White dwarf stars start off extremely hot, but they no longer generate their own energy. And while they initially radiate enough heat that we can see them in our telescopes, they slowly lose their energy over billions of years." — Deborah Netburn, The Bismark (North Dakota) Tribune, 15 Jan. 2019   Test Your Vocabulary   What is the name for an explosion of a star in which the star may reach a luminosity one billion times that of the sun?   VIEW THE ANSWER           WORD OF THE YEAR 2018     Justice + 10 more   Read why justice is our Word of the Year, plus lodestar, epiphany, pansexual, and 7 more top words!   SEE THE FULL LIST            MORE WORD FUN:     WORD GAMES          TRENDING NOW          WORDS AT PLAY      FOLLOW US:

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