Indefinite and fictitious large numbers

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"Zillion" redirects here. For other uses, see Zillion (disambiguation).

By analogy to the names billion, trillion, and so forth for large powers of ten, words such as zillion[1] and bazillion[2] are often used as fictitious names for an unspecified, large number of indefinite size, or as part of a large, indefinite measurement. These words are often used in exaggeration. The size is dependent upon the context to which it is used, but can typically be considered large enough to be unfathomable by the average human mind.

Many similar words are used, such as jillion[3], bajillion[4], squillion[1], skillion[5], kabillion[6], kajillion[7], gajillion[8], umptillion[9], gagillion[10], gadzillion[11], godzillion[12], quillion[13], and grillion.[14]

Typically, these words are used in a humorous context, or in loose, unconfined conversation to present an un-guessably large number. It is often used to impress someone with the concept of an ambiguous numerical enormousness.

These words can be transformed into ordinal numbers or fractions by the usual pattern of appending the suffix -th, e.g., "I asked her for the zillionth time."

Contents

[edit] Ordering, value

Since these are undefined numbers, they are not considered to have mathematical validity. They also have no accepted order, since none is necessarily larger or smaller than any of the others. Various authors and other persons have set their own definitions as to amount and order of fictional and ambiguous numbers.

[edit] In popular culture

Fry: "One jillion dollars!" [the crowd gasps]
Auctioneer: "Sir, that's not a number." [the crowd gasps again][18]
  • In the movie Monkey Business (1952), Cary Grant's character, returned to childhood by an elixir of youth, is asked a price for his formula and replies "A zillion dollars! A million trillion!"
  • Children's entertainer and TV presenter Timmy Mallett frequently used the word "squillion" to describe large numbers of things on his Saturday morning show Wacaday.[citation needed]
  • A popular joke focuses on a world leader being told that a multi-national military force had suffered three Brazilian (i.e., "brazillion") casualties. The leader is described as very disconcerted over such a huge loss of life — Presidential Briefing rec.humor.funny
  • In episode 17x03, "Milhouse of Sand and Fog", of the animated television series The Simpsons, Homer is offered a kajillion dollars, but he wants more.
Homer: "Two kajillion!"
Marge: "Homer!"
Homer: (to Marge) "But we'll lose the first kajillion to taxes!"
Joey: Hey, Chan, can you help me out here? I promise I'll pay you back.
Chandler: Oh, yeah, right, OK... including the waffles last week, you now owe me... 17 jillion dollars.
Brush my shoulder and I pop my colla
Cause I'm worth a million gazillion fafillion dollas
  • In the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip originally published in newspapers on January 18, 1995 (also in There's Treasure Everywhere on page 138), Calvin asks Susie what 7 + 6 is. Susie tells him three hundred billion gazillion. Sarcastically, Calvin thanks her for the big help. Susie tells him that is a three, followed by 85 zeroes. Calvin writes it down, saying he knew that. This implies a value of 1×1074 for a gazillion.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Pratchett, Terry (2002). Witches Abroad. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-102061-3. p. 146: "And you owe me a million billion trillion zillion squillion dollars."
  2. ^ Harrison, Colin (2001). Afterburn. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-97870-7. p. 278: "I wouldn't sleep with him in a bazillion years, but I'm not scared of him."
  3. ^ Heinlein, Robert A. (1997, reprint ed). The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. Tor/Forge. (orig. pub. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1966.) ISBN 0-312-86355-1. p. 60: "I told her about cheque for umpteen jillion."
  4. ^ Bates, Karen G. (2005). Plain Brown Wrapper. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-380-80891-9. p. 86: "Well, yes, it was, and the rumor that there were seventy bajillion women to every man just wouldn't die..."
  5. ^ Kean, Rob (2000). The Pledge. Warner Books. ISBN 0-446-60848-3. p. 429: "Sure enough, I found a skillion articles from about a dozen years ago, accounts of the events and aftermath of Cherry Plain."
  6. ^ Hodgman, Ann (1999). Beat That!. Houghton Mifflin Cookbooks. ISBN 0-395-97178-0. p. 115: "That's about all I remember, except for this salad and the ninety kabillion manicotti someone else brought."
  7. ^ Steven Schragis and Rick Frishman (2006). 10 Clowns Don't Make a Circus. Adams Media. ISBN 1-59337-555-7. p. 122: "You are not going to sell a kajillion of anything just because it's the coolest little gizmo you ever saw or because your Uncle Ernie said you would."
  8. ^ Southworth, Samuel A. (2004). U.S. Armed Forces Arsenal: A Guide to Modern Combat Hardware. Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-81318-1. p. 98: "The expectation was that the Soviets would roll a gajillion of their ever-improving but still basic tanks across the landscape..."
  9. ^ Anthony, Piers (2002). How Precious Was That While. Tor/Forge. ISBN 0-8125-7543-1. p. 121: "Your best place, geographically, to bridge across the river is surrounded by Hell's Bells Bog, so deep it would take fifteen umptillion tons of special fill to stabilize it, putting you over your budget."
  10. ^ Lawrence, Martha C. (1996). Murder in Scorpio. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-95984-2. p. 114: "The brochures basically told the same story Stan had given me: Pacific Properties owned a gagillion places that generated a gagillion dollars."
  11. ^ Cooke, Kaz (2003). Bun in the Oven. Ten Speed Press. ISBN 1-58008-531-8. p. 3: "...and then the editor asked a gadzillion questions..."
  12. ^ Franzen, Jonathan (2001). Strong Motion. Picador. ISBN 0-312-42051-X. p. 395: "She believes there's a zillion gallons of oil and a godzillion cubic meters of natural gas inside the earth, beginning at a depth of about four miles, and no anvil-headed senior research chemist with a crew cut and stinky breath is going to tell her it isn't so."
  13. ^ http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=quillion
  14. ^ Kelley, Brent (2001). The Pastime in Turbulence: Interviews with Baseball Players of the 1940s. McFarland and Company. ISBN 0-7864-0975-4. p. 8: "After that, even expansion and grillion-dollar salaries could not harm it."
  15. ^ http://www.zillions.org/
  16. ^ Zillions of Games. Zillions Development Corporation. Retrieved on 2006-07-17.
  17. ^ Stevie Wonder, Fulfillingness' First Finale, 1974, Motown/Tamla T6332S1; remastered reprint, 2000, Universal/Motown 012 157 356-2.
  18. ^ Futurama sound clips
  19. ^ Adams, Douglas (2005, reprint ed). Life, the Universe, and Everything. Del Rey. (orig. pub. London: Pan Books, 1982.) ISBN 0-345-41890-5. p. 101.

[edit] See also

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