trillion

Etymology

It is borrowed from French trillion,^[2][3][4][5] a word coined in Middle French, where it is recorded from 1484 in the work of Nicolas Chuquet with the value 10¹⁸.^[2] It was made on the model of million by putting the prefix tri- (“three”) in place of its first letters,^{[6][2][7][8][9]} Hoad and the Shorter Oxford also allow Italian trilione as the source,^[8][5] and Etymonline derives the French word from the Italian one.^[10] The OED compares a slightly earlier Middle French form, trimillion, recorded in 1475.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the plural, in either the older British sense 10¹⁸ or the later sense 10¹²: 1635, in Richard Dafforne's Merchants Mirrour.^[2] Barnhart, Merriam-Webster and Etymonline date the word to John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding of 1690,^[3][4][10] and Johnson (1755) thought Locke had invented it.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In French the word had the value 10¹⁸ from the 15th century and 10¹² from the mid-17th century.^[2] English first used it in the older sense, a million twice multiplied by a million, as Johnson (1755) defined it,^[11][2] which Etymonline calls the original and most systematic one.^[10] The smaller value, 10¹², is recorded from 1830 in an American arithmetic book and spread from North America;^[2] it is now the usual sense, and Collins treats the larger one as a former British use.^[12][5] From 1745 the word was used loosely for any huge number,^[2] and since 1826 for a trillion units of a currency.^[2][13]

Timeline

• 1475 – Middle French trimillion.^[2]
• 1484 – French trillion, in Chuquet.^[2]
• 1635 – first English use, in the plural.^[2]
• 1690 – Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding.^[3][4]
• a1690 – in the singular, 10¹⁸.^[2]
• 1745 – a very large number, by exaggeration.^[2]
• 1772 – as an adjective.^[2]
• 1826 – a trillion units of money.^[2]
• 1830 – (originally North American) 10¹².^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. The number one followed by twelve zeros (10¹²); a thousand billion.
2. (chiefly British, formerly) The number one followed by eighteen zeros (10¹⁸).
3. (informal, often plural) An enormous but unspecified number: There must be trillions of grains of sand on this beach.

Adjective

1. Amounting to a trillion: a trillion cells.

Word family

• trillionth

Related words

• million
• quadrillion

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
12. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
13. ^ Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)