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Unlike cardinal numbers these can be pluralized, in which case they require of before the noun (millions of dollars, but five million dollars) and require the indefinite article "a" in the singular (a million letters (indefinite) but one million letters (definite)). In French, 36 and 36,000 are occasionally used as a synonym for "very many".
Two naming scales for large numbers have been used in English and other European languages since the early modern era: the long and short scales.Most English variants use the short scale today, but the long scale remains dominant in many non-English-speaking areas, including continental Europe and Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America.
the long scale — designates a system of numeric names formerly used in British English, but now obsolete, in which a billion is used for a million million (and similarly, with trillion, quadrillion etc., the prefix denoting the power of a million); and a thousand million is sometimes called a milliard. This system is still used in several ...
The meaning of the word "million" is common to the short scale and long scale numbering systems, unlike the larger numbers, which have different names in the two systems. The million is sometimes used in the English language as a metaphor for a very large number, as in "Not in a million years" and "You're one in a million", or a hyperbole, as ...
1000 million Mark Notgeld banknote (1923) of Frankfurt am Main. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word billion was formed in the 16th century (from million and the prefix bi-, "two"), meaning the second power of a million (1,000,000 2 = 10 12). This long scale definition was similarly applied to trillion, quadrillion and so on ...
Although $1 million may seem like a lot of money, unfortunately, it doesn't stretch as far as it used to. But, if you're a frugal spender, it may be just enough to buy everything you've always wanted.
Visualization of 1 trillion (short scale) A Rubik's cube, which has about 43 trillion (long scale) possible positions. Trillion is a number with two distinct definitions: 1,000,000,000,000, i.e. one million million, or 10 12 (ten to the twelfth power), as defined on the short scale. This is now the meaning in both American and British English.
A bit is an antiquated term equal to one eighth of a dollar or 12 + 1 ⁄ 2 cents, after the Spanish 8-Real "piece of eight" coin on which the U.S. dollar was initially based. So "two bits" is twenty-five cents; similarly, "four bits" is fifty cents. More rare are "six bits" (75 cents) and "eight bits" meaning a dollar. These are commonly ...