Milliard

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Milliard is a French-derived numeral word meaning the number 1,000,000,000 (10⁹; one thousand million; SI prefix giga) and which is used in France, Germany ("Milliarde"), Italy ("Miliardo"), Russia ("миллиард"), the Scandinavian countries (Norway and Denmark) ("Milliard"), Sweden ("Miljard"), Finland ("Miljardi"), the Netherlands ("Miljard"), Romania ("Miliard"), Poland ("Miliard"), Hungary ("Milliárd"), Iran, and Israel (מיליארד). It is rare or unknown in English.

During the 20^th century, the short scale "billion" superseded "thousand million" to become the normal term in most of the English-speaking world. In languages in which "milliard" is common, a "billion" often refers to a thousand "milliard" or 1,000,000,000,000, which is a trillion elsewhere. This scheme continues in these countries, so "billiard" means quadrillion, "trillion" means quintillion and "trilliard" means sextillion.

In financial markets, yard (derived from milliard) is still often used instead of "billion" to avoid ambiguity between "million" and "billion". When South Africa adopted the metric system in 1971, "milliard" was recommended by the Metrication Board, but has often been ignored in practice. A negative "yard" or "billion" in the financial markets is commonly known as a nickel.

Translation errors are often caused by not knowing the difference between the long and the short scale usages of these large numerals.