-illion

From Fresh Dictionary

Contents 1 English 1.1 Etymology 1.2 Suffix 1.2.1 Usage note

English

Etymology

From million, from Latin mille, thousand, plus augmentative suffix -ion or -on (literally big thousand)

Suffix

-illion

1. Combined with Latin prefixes for names of integers in order to form names of powers of a million or of a thousand greater than 1,000,000. Thus we have the names billion, trillion, etc.
2. Added to various nonsense syllables to indicate an arbitrarily very large number.

   Variants noted: bajillion, gazillion, jillion, kajillion, squillion, zillion, hojillion here,

Usage note

• The word formed by combining the Latin prefix for the name of an integer n (n > 1) with this suffix may mean 1,000,000ⁿ or 1000^{n + 1}, depending on national practices. Hence billion can mean "million million" or "thousand million". See the usage notes at Wiktionary's appendix on numbers and billion for more information.