How to Use billion in a Sentence

billion

noun
  • We could see a billion stars in the sky.
  • The two mega-deals cost AT&T tens of billions of dollars.
    — Dade Hayes, Deadline, 16 Sep. 2024
  • Google and Meta now serve billions of people around the world.
    — Paresh Dave, WIRED, 18 Mar. 2024
  • For New York, the costs to support the asylum seekers are in the billions.
    — Eileen Sullivan, New York Times, 31 Aug. 2023
  • Turns out the answer is at least one of those billions.
    — Paul Tassi, Forbes, 16 Aug. 2024
  • The proposal raised the fury of the US and China, who feared billions in charges.
    — Michael J. Coren, Quartz, 19 Dec. 2019
  • From our modern moment, eons billions of years in the past seem hard to touch.
    — Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 July 2024
  • The very act of giving bullhorns to billions is both a boon and a menace.
    — Steven Levy, Wired, 29 May 2020
  • And, even on the moon, glass does not last for billions of years without changing.
    — Rahul Rao, Popular Science, 9 Nov. 2023
  • In our own Milky Way galaxy there could be billions of black holes.
    — Quanta Magazine, 10 Apr. 2019
  • That’s not just good news for the billions of people who own smartphones.
    — Anil Dash, Rolling Stone, 30 Dec. 2023
  • And the guy who shields his billions while itching to raise taxes on the middle-class?
    — John Kass, chicagotribune.com, 19 Nov. 2019
  • Collins said this would save billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives.
    — Jon Lapook, CBS News, 4 Aug. 2023
  • And Pat Stryker made her billions the old-fashioned way.
    — Jon Caldara, The Denver Post, 13 Dec. 2019
  • For billions who live in countries without a free press, this is true.
    — Greg Jackson, Harper's magazine, 6 Jan. 2020
  • What about the billions without heat or light or clean water?
    — Robert Colvile, National Review, 24 Sep. 2019
  • Even so, Musk’s absence appears to be worth billions in the pandemic era of the CEO.
    — Chloe Berger, Fortune, 2 July 2024
  • This is an old story, too, threaded through billions of lives across centuries and around the globe.
    — Megan Marshall, The New Yorker, 8 Feb. 2025
  • The drug is on track to make Pfizer billions more each year for the foreseeable future.
    — Author: Christopher Rowland, Anchorage Daily News, 5 June 2019
  • Zambia is on the hook for all of the development with billions of dollars in debt.
    — Chris Megerian, BostonGlobe.com, 31 Mar. 2023
  • A lot separates us from the kind of life that existed billions of years ago.
    — Joshua Rothman, The New Yorker, 3 Sep. 2024
  • Millions of French consume billions of baguettes each year, and not just as fuel.
    — John Leicester, The Christian Science Monitor, 26 Mar. 2020
  • But taking a slice of the hundreds of billions the U.S. government spends each year on goods and services comes with strings.
    — By Jessica Guynn, Jayme Fraser and Nick Penzenstadler, Usa Today and Will Evans, Reveal, USA TODAY, 28 Apr. 2023
  • There’s always this kernel of magic that comes with the idea of having billions.
    — Michael Schulman, The New Yorker, 12 July 2024
  • The bank has also paid billions to regulators over the years.
    — Morgan Chittum, CNBC, 14 July 2024
  • The deal saddled the company with billions of dollars of debt, and opinions are mixed over the wisdom of Iger’s play for Fox.
    — Meg James, Los Angeles Times, 20 Nov. 2023
  • Life on Earth began billions of years ago, and has evolved into the many forms that exist today.
    — Letters To The Editor, Orlando Sentinel, 23 June 2024
  • Yet, the prosperity left the country with billions in debt.
    — Regina Garcia Cano, BostonGlobe.com, 17 Aug. 2023
  • The asteroids themselves were likely part of the planet-forming process that occurred billions of years earlier, when the white dwarf was still a young, vigorous star like the sun.
    — Phil Plait, Scientific American, 28 Mar. 2025
  • The law was intended to boost the transition away from fossil fuels with billions of dollars in tax credits and incentives to encourage clean energy projects.
    — Lauren Green, The Washington Examiner, 30 Mar. 2025

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'billion.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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