מִילְיַארְד (milyard) — one billion (= 10⁹)

Etymology

Ancient Hebrew had no word for numbers as large as a million. When very large numbers needed to be expressed, writers used multiples of a thousand — for example, Chronicles II uses "אֶלֶף אֲלָפִים" (a thousand thousands, i.e., a million) to describe the army of Zerah the Ethiopian. The largest number with its own dedicated Hebrew name was רְבָבָה or רִבּוֹא (ten thousand), which could also be multiplied rhetorically: "אֲלָפֵי רְבָבָה" (thousands of ten-thousands, i.e., millions) in Genesis 24:60, though always for poetic exaggeration rather than real counting.

Only after the Hindu-Arabic numeral system spread to Europe could very large numbers be calculated and named. The word "million" appeared first — as far as we know — in the work of Byzantine monk Maximus Planudes (13th century), in his "Great Calculation According to the Indians." It was formed by adding the augmentative suffix "-on" to Latin "mille" (thousand), creating "million" meaning "big thousand." The same suffix appears in French "salon" (big hall, from "salle") and "ballon" (big ball, from "bal"). Words for numbers beyond a million appeared in France in the 15th century: mathematician Jehan Adam (1475) presented "bymillion" and "trymillion" for billion and trillion. Nicolas Chuquet (c. 1484) published these in the familiar modern spellings — million, billion — and extended the series through nonillion, using Latin prefixes for 2 through 9.

Under Chuquet's system, a billion (bi-million) meant a million million (10¹²). But in 1516, French mathematician Guillaume Budé introduced the word "milliard" (from "million" plus the suffix "-ard") for one thousand million (10⁹). This created two competing systems over the following centuries — the "long scale" used in continental Europe, where each new name represents a million times the previous one (million, milliard, billion, trillion...), and the "short scale" used in the United States, where each name represents a thousand times the previous one (million, billion, trillion...). In England both were used at different times, creating enormous ambiguity in English-language texts until 1974, when the British government officially adopted the American short scale.

Hebrew adopted the long scale, following German practice, from the 19th century. In 1940 the Language Committee officially designated "ביליון" for one thousand milliards (10¹²). But in practice, many Israelis used "ביליון" loosely as a synonym for "מיליארד" — especially for American dollars. Prime Minister Ben-Gurion demonstrated this in a 1950 Mapai committee meeting: "We will need 500–600 million Israeli pounds, which are like a billion and a half dollars." When the audience asked how much a billion was, Ben-Gurion replied: "What we call 'milyard' you Americans call 'billion.' I used 'billion' because the dollars are, as you know, in America." In January 2013, the Academy's 320th plenary session resolved the confusion by adopting the American short scale. Now "ביליון" unambiguously means the same as "מיליארד" — 10⁹ — and the series runs: million, milyard/billion, trillion, quadrillion.

Key Quotes

"וַיֵּצֵא אֲלֵיהֶם זֶרַח הַכּוּשִׁי בְּחַיִל אֶלֶף אֲלָפִים" — דברי הימים ב׳ י״ד, ח׳ (מיליון לפני שהייתה מילה למיליון)

"מה שקוראים אצלנו מיליארד קוראים באמריקה ביליון. השתמשתי במילה ביליון כיוון שהדולרים נמצאים, כידוע, באמריקה" — דוד בן-גוריון, ועדת מפא״י, 1950

Timeline

• 13th century: "million" first appears in Maximus Planudes's Greek manuscript
• 1475: Jehan Adam presents "bymillion" and "trymillion"
• c. 1484: Nicolas Chuquet publishes billion, trillion, etc. in modern form
• 1516: Guillaume Budé introduces "milliard" for 10⁹
• 19th century: Hebrew adopts "מִילְיַארְד" via German long-scale system
• 1940: Language Committee designates "ביליון" = 10¹²
• 1950: Ben-Gurion uses "ביליון" to mean 10⁹ (American usage)
• January 2013: Academy (session 320) adopts American short scale; "מיליארד" = "ביליון" = 10⁹

Related Words

• מִילְיוֹן — million (10⁶); older loanword from French/Latin
• בִּילְיוֹן — billion (now = מיליארד = 10⁹ in Hebrew after 2013 reform)
• טְרִילְיוֹן — trillion (10¹²)
• רְבָבָה / רִבּוֹא — ten thousand; the largest named number in Biblical Hebrew