gillion
/ˈɡɪljən/
gillion numeral: a thousand million, proposed as an alternative to the (now little used) British milliard and the (ambiguous, in the UK) US billion.
Numeral
gillion
- A thousand million, proposed as an alternative to the (now little used) British milliard and the (ambiguous, in the UK) US billion.
- The internationally agreed symbol for 10^6 is M and this is the initial letter of million. Would it not be logical and convenient to turn this happy accident into a principle and use G, the internationally agreed symbol for 10^9, as the initial letter of the word for 1,000,000,000? That number...1968, N. W. Pirie, More About the Units (Nature vol. 220)
Noun
gillion (plural gillions)
- An unspecified large number (of).
- At Guy's school there had been an outdoor pool, in use from April to October, a watery grave for a billion insects, or quite possibly a gillion or a squillion. The bright turquoise lining had wrinkled under the children's feet.2012, Rebecca Smith, A Bit of Earth
- I looked down to see my dog, Roof, short for Rufus, curled in sleep below the window, unworried by the wings of hummingbirds whirring at speeds of a gillion miles an hour as they flitted in and out of the trumpets of honeysuckle growing on the side of the house.2022, Frank Voss, My House Was Not a Home
Forms of gillion
| plural | gillions |
|---|
Origin of gillion
From gi(ga)- + -illion. Modelled after million, billion etc. Compare also jillion.
Words that rhyme with gillion
- pavilion
- vermilion
- pillion
- billion
- novemdecillion
- quintillion
- trillion
- Brazilian
- Castilian
- centillion
- decillion
- duodecillion
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- duovigintillion
- million
- nonillion
- octillion
- octodecillion
- quadrillion
- quattuordecillion
- quattuorvigintillion
- quindecillion
- septendecillion
- septillion
- sexdecillion
- sextillion
- tredecillion
- trevigintillion
- trigintillion
- undecillion
- unvigintillion
- duotrigintillion
- gazillion
- gillian
- godzillion
- gorillion
- Jillian
- jillion
- Kabylian
- Luxulyan
- mandilion
- mandylion
- Maximilian
- millillion
- millinillion
- novemtrigintillion
- novemvigintillion
- octogintillion
- octotrigintillion
- octovigintillion
- quadragintillion
- quattuortrigintillion
- quinquagintillion
- quinvigintillion
- septentrigintillion
- septenvigintillion
- sextrigintillion
- sexvigintillion
- squillion
- untrigintillion
- vigintillion
Questions about gillion
- What does gillion mean?
- Gillion means a thousand million, proposed as an alternative to the (now little used) British milliard and the (ambiguous, in the UK) US billion.
- What part of speech is gillion?
- Gillion can be a numeral or a noun.
- How do you pronounce gillion?
- Gillion is pronounced /ˈɡɪljən/.
Words near gillion in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gillion (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “gillion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gillion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.