billion

• 億；大きい
• num.
• adj.億
• n. （億）人名; （仏）Bilion.

接頭語のbi-は2、millionは百万。文字通り1兆、現在は通常10億。

billion (n.)

1680s, from French billion (originally byllion in Chuquet's unpublished "Le Triparty en la Science des Nombres," 1484; copied by De la Roche, 1520); see bi- "two" + million. A million million in Britain and Germany (numeration by groups of sixes), which was the original sense; subsequently altered in French to "a thousand million" (numeration by groups of threes) and picked up in that form in U.S., "due in part to French influence after the Revolutionary War" [David E. Smith, "History of Mathematics," 1925]. France then reverted to the original meaning in 1948. British usage is truer to the etymology, but U.S. sense is said to be increasingly common there in technical writing.

In Italian arithmetics from the last quarter of the fifteenth century the words bilione or duilione, trilione, quadrilione or quattrilione, quintilione, cinquilione, or quinquilione, sestione or sestilione, settilione, ottilione, noeilione and decilione occur as common abbreviations of due volte millioni, tre volte millione, etc. In other countries these words came into use much later, although one French writer, Nicolas Chuquet, mentions them as early as 1484, in a book not printed until 1881. The Italians had, besides, another system of numeration, proceeding by powers of a thousand. The French, who like other northern peoples, took most if not all their knowledge of modern or Arabic arithmetic from the Italians, early confounded the two systems of Italian numeration, counting in powers of a thousand, but adopting the names which properly belong to powers of a million.

For a time in Britain gillion (1961), based on giga-, was tried as "a thousand million" to avoid ambiguity.

1. Exports in June rose 1.5%to a record$30.91 billion .

6月の輸出額は1.5%上昇し、309.1億ドルの過去最高を記録した。

2.Novello says college students will spend$4.2 billion yearly on alcoholic beverages.

ノベロは大学生が毎年アルコール飲料に42億ドルを消費していると言っている。

3. This has been done by plundering ￡4 billion from the Government reserves.

これは40億ポンドを横領した政府準備金によって完成した。

4.The advertising agency rang up 1.4 billion dollars in yearly sales.

この広告代理店の年間売上高は14億ドルに達している。

5.The US trade deficit widened to$7.59 billion in November.

11月の米国の貿易赤字は75.9億ドルに拡大した。