Milliard
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Milliard is a French-derived word meaning the number 1,000,000,000 (109; one thousand million; SI prefix giga). It is not used in American English and is rare in other forms of English. When South Africa adopted the metric system in 1971, "milliard" was recommended by the Metrication Board, but has often been ignored in practice. During the 20th century, the short scale "billion" superseded 'thousand million' to become the normal term in most of the English-speaking world.
"Milliard", or a version thereof, is common to many languages other than English, where a "billion" often refers to a thousand "milliard" - 1,000,000,000,000.
In financial markets, yard (derived from milliard) is still often used instead of "billion" in order to avoid ambiguity between "million" and "billion".
[edit] See also
- Long and short scales for a history of the term
- Names of large numbers
- Number names
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