Etymologically
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Milliarde

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Pronunciation

  • /mɪˈli̯aʁdə/, [mɪlˈjaʁ.də], [mɪ.liˈaʁ.də][1]

Forms

Milliarde f (genitive Milliarde, plural Milliarden, diminutive Milliärdchen n)[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French milliard (“a thousand million”), borrowed in the 18th century.[2][3][4] Kluge derives the French word from Old Occitan milhar (“a full thousand”), from Latin mīliārium (“a thousand”), from mīlle (“thousand”).[2] Pfeifer and Duden instead see it as formed from million by exchanging the ending -on for -ard;[3][5] the Middle French form was miliart.[3][5] The French masculine became feminine in German after Million, which itself follows the gender of Zahl.[4][6][1]

The same French word was borrowed as Dutch miljard and Swedish miljard.[2] Its value was fixed in a system in which this name is given to a thousand millions and a million millions a Billion; the United States and, increasingly, Britain count otherwise, so that the German word corresponds to English billion.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the form Milliard, in an orthographic handbook of 1773.[4][7] Brockes wrote milliare, after the French pronunciation without /d/, and Campe listed Milliarde in 1801.[6][4]

Semantic evolution

The word was rare until the 19th century.[4][6] It became familiar when France paid Germany five Milliarden francs as war indemnity after the war of 1870–1871.[3][6] Hungarian took it from German as milliárd in 1795.[8]

Timeline

  • 1773 – Milliard appears in an orthographic handbook.[4]
  • 1795 – Hungarian milliárd is recorded.[8]
  • 1801 – Campe lists Milliarde.[4]
  • 1871 – The French war indemnity of five thousand million francs makes the word common.[3][6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A thousand million, 10⁹; a billion: drei Milliarden Euro.[9][1][10]

Word family

  • Milliardär

Usage notes

The usual abbreviations are Mrd and Md, each followed by a full stop.[9][10] Billion in German is not the English billion but a million times a million, and the next step after it is Billiarde.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 623
  3. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Schulz, Hans; Basler, Otto, et al. (1913–1988), Deutsches Fremdwörterbuch, 7 vols., Strasbourg / Berlin: Trübner / De Gruyter; 2nd ed., ed. Gerhard Strauß et al. (1995–), Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; via OWID, Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache
  5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2007), 4th ed., Duden vol. 7, Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  6. ^ a b c d e Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 2217
  7. ^ Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
  8. ^ a b Lehnwortportal Deutsch (2012–), Leibniz-Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, lwp.ids-mannheim.de
  9. ^ a b Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
  10. ^ a b Duden. Das Fremdwörterbuch (2007), 9th ed., Duden vol. 5, Mannheim: Dudenverlag