trillion

See also: Trillion

English

English Wikipedia has articles on:

trillion and Long and short scales

Wikipedia Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• enPR: trĭl'yən, IPA^(key): /ˈtɹɪljən/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪljən

Etymology 1

Borrowed from French trillion, from French tri- (“three”) + -illion, equivalent to tri- +‎ -illion.

Numeral

trillion (plural trillions)

2. Either of two large amounts:
   1. (US, modern British, Australia, short scale) A million (times a) million: 1 followed by twelve zeros, 10¹².

      Synonym: billion (long scale)

      • 2012, BioWare, Mass Effect 3: From Ashes (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2:

        Javik: Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. Their silence is your answer.

      • 2024 January 3, Hanna Ziady and Tami Luhby, “US national debt hits record $34 trillion”, in CNN‎:

        Data published by the Treasury Department showed that “total public debt outstanding” rose to $34.001 trillion on December 29.

      • 2025 March 7, Kayla Tausche, “Dismantling of Education Department puts future of trillions of dollars in student loans in question”, in CNN‎:

        As President Donald Trump prepares to order the dismantling of the Department of Education, the financial arm of the agency – which makes loans directly to borrowers and manages trillions of dollars in student debt – faces an uncertain future, with steep staff cuts and lack of communication exacerbating the uncertainty, according to interviews with more than a dozen current and former department employees.

   2. (dated British, Australia, long scale) A million (times a) million (times a) million: 1 followed by eighteen zeros, 10¹⁸.

      Synonym: quintillion

4. (colloquial, hyperbolic) An unspecified very large number.

   Near-synonyms: gazillion; see also Thesaurus:zillion

   There were trillions of people at the concert.

abbreviations

• tln, tln.
• tn, tn.
• tril, tril.
• T, t, T., t.

Coordinate terms

• thousand
• million
• milliard
• thousand million
• billion
• quadrillion
• quintillion
• sextillion

Descendants

• → Welsh: triliwn

Translations

a million million, 10¹² — see also billion

Afrikaans: biljoen (af) Arabic: بِلْيُون m (bilyūn), تِرِيلِيُون m (tirīliyūn) Armenian: տրիլիոն (hy) (trilion), երկիլիոն (hy) (erkilion) Belarusian: трыльён m (trylʹjón) Bulgarian: трилио́н m (trilión) Burmese: ထရီလီယံ (hta.riliyam) Catalan: bilió (ca) Chinese: Mandarin: 萬億 / 万亿 (zh) (wànyì), 兆 (zh) (zhào) Czech: bilión (cs) m Dutch: biljoen (nl) n Esperanto: biliono, duiliono (eo) Estonian: biljon Faroese: billión f Finnish: biljoona (fi) French: billion (fr) m, mille milliards (fr) m pl Georgian: ტრილიონი (ṭrilioni) German: Billion (de) f Greek: τρισεκατομμύριο (el) n (trisekatommýrio) Greenlandic: billioni Hindi: महापद्म m (mahāpadma) Hungarian: billió (hu) Indonesian: triliun, biliun Italian: bilione (it) f Japanese: 兆 (ja) (ちょう, chō) Javanese: kirna Khmer: ពាន់ពាន់លាន (pŏənpŏənliən), លានលាន (liən liən) Korean: 조(兆) (ko) (jo), 만억(萬億) (ko) (maneok) Malay: trilion (ms) Maltese: biljun Manchu: ᠰᠠᠵᠠ (saja) Navajo: chiyóón Persian: تریلیون (fa) (terilyon) Polish: bilion (pl) m inan Portuguese: bilião (pt) m (Angola, Portugal), trilhão (pt) m (Brazil) Romanian: bilion (ro) n Russian: триллио́н (ru) m (trillión) Sanskrit: महापद्म (sa) (mahāpadma) Slovak: bilión (sk) m Spanish: billón (es) m Swahili: trilioni Swedish: biljon (sv) c Tagalog: trilyon Tatar: триллион (tt) (trillion) Turkish: trilyon (tr) Ukrainian: трильйо́н (uk) m (trylʹjón) Vietnamese: nghìn tỉ, ngàn tỉ Yiddish: ביליאָן m (bilyon)

a million million million, 10¹⁸ — see also quintillion

Arabic: تِرِيلِْيُون m (tirīliyūn) Armenian: եռիլիոն (hy) (eṙilion) Catalan: trilió (ca) Czech: trilión m Dutch: triljoen (nl) n Esperanto: triiliono Estonian: triljon Faroese: trillión f Finnish: triljoona (fi) French: trillion (fr) m German: Trillion (de) f Italian: trilione (it) f Maltese: triljun Manchu: ᡨᠠᠩᡤᡡ ᠵᡳᡵᡠᠨ (tanggū jirun) Maori: tiriona Polish: trylion (pl) m inan Portuguese: trilião (pt) m (Angola, Portugal), quintilhão m (Brazil) Romanian: trilion (ro) n Russian: квинтиллио́н (ru) m (kvintillión) Sinhalese: ත්‍රිලියනය (triliyanaya) Slovak: trilión m Spanish: trillón (es) m Swedish: triljon (sv) c Turkish: kentilyon (tr)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

Serbo-Croatian: (please verify) bilion m

See also

• (short scale) Previous: billion. Next: quadrillion
• (long scale) Previous: billiard. Next: trilliard
• (SI prefix): tera-

Etymology 2

Coined by Harvey Pollack, because of the way the numbers read across a basketball box score.

Noun

trillion (plural trillions)

1. (basketball, slang) A statistic formed by a player playing some number of minutes, but recording no stats.