See Also: million(dictionary)
million(dictionary)
Winston Million, the - Motor Sports(gambling)
Million Dollar Bill - Motor Sports(gambling)

million (iou)



million noun & adjective (in mod. usage also classed as a determiner), (cardinal numeral). LME.
[Old & mod. French, prob. from Old & mod. Italian millione (now milione), from mille thousand + augm. suffix -one -OON.]
A. noun.
I. Pl. now usu. same after a numeral and often after a quantifier, otherwise -s; as sing. usu. preceded by a, or in emphatic use one.
A thousand times a thousand units of a specified category or group (now almost always definite, as a million of the, a million of those, etc., one million of its, one million of his mother's, etc.); a thousand times a thousand persons or things identified contextually, as pounds or dollars, years in dates, chances (in giving odds), units in oil production, etc.; pl. after a quantifier, multiples of a thousand times a thousand such persons or things. Usu. treated as pl. LME.
a million to one chance a very low probability. a in a million, one in a million a very valuable or unusual person or thing (of the type specified or understood). gone a million Austral. & NZ colloq. completely lost, in a hopeless state. one in a million: see a in a million above.
R. P. Ward By loans..and other speculations, he achieved his million. Manchester Examiner He could count his soldiers by the million. D. H. Lawrence In the world beyond, how easily we might spare a million or two of humans. W. Faulkner The whole million of them we have lost. W. S. Churchill More than a million of the Local Defence Volunteers. F. Forsyth Six million of his fellow Jews. I. McEwan Tens of millions have been saved in social security payments.
b. In pl. without specifying word: several million; hyperbol. very large numbers. (Foll. by of.) LME.
A. Bullock He persisted in regarding Molotov..as responsible for the murder of millions. S. Bellow A huge tree..old, arthritic..but still capable of putting forth millions of leaves.
c. A quantity equal to this, a very large amount. Now chiefly in a million of money. LME.
d. The multitude, the bulk of the population. E17.
A thousand times a thousand as an abstract number, the symbol(s) or figure(s) representing this (1,000,000 in arabic numerals); in pl. after a numeral, that number of multiples of a thousand times a thousand as an abstract number, the symbol(s) or figure(s) representing any such number (as 5,000,000). LME.
II.
In pl. (treated as sing.) = GUPPY noun1. Also millions fish. E20.
b. adjective. After an article, possessive, etc.: a thousand times a thousand (a cardinal numeral represented by 1,000,000 in arabic numerals); hyperbol. a very great many. After a numeral or quantifier: multiples of a thousand times a thousand. LME.
like a million dollars, a million dollars excellent, splendid, magnificent.
A. S. Neill A million men say grace before meals..and probably 999,999 men say it mechanically. M. Angelou A heckler had asked why sixteen million Africans allowed three million whites to control them. S. Rushdie She would never marry Haroun Harappa, no, not in a million years. Scotsman My Dad's car goes a million times faster than your Dad's car.
Comb.: Forming compound numerals (cardinal or ordinal) with numerals below a million, as 1,600,000 (read one million six hundred thousand), 1,000,080 (read one million and eighty). Special combs., as million-dollar adjective worth or costing a million dollars; fig. expensive-looking, splendid, attractive; million-seller a record, book, etc., of which a million copies have been sold; millions fish: see sense A.3 above.
millionism noun (rare) millionairedom M19.
millionist noun (rare) a millionaire M19.