Billion

Definitions: Billion

Billion

Adjective

1. (U.S.) denoting a quantity consisting of one thousand million items or units; (Britain) denoting a quantity consisting of one million million items or units.

Noun

1. (in Britain) the number that is represented as a one followed by 12 zeros.

2. (in the United States) the number that is represented as a one followed by 9 zeros.

Date "billion" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1870. (references)

Specialty Definitions: Billion

Domain	Definitions
Geological	In North America, 1,000,000,000. (references)
Mathematics	A million millions. Source: European Union. (references)
Public Administration	American term equivalent to one thousand million in the U. K. and Europe, 10 9. Source: European Union. (references)
Space	In the U.S., 109. In other countries using SI, 1012. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Billion

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

In most English-speaking countries today, one billion equals 1,000,000,000, or 10⁹, or one thousand millions. This is also the convention adopted by Wikipedia.

In most other countries, a word similar to "billion" indicates 1,000,000,000,000, or 10¹², or one million millions. For example: French, Norwegian and German billion, Spanish billón, Italian bilione and Swedish billion or biljon. The value 10⁹ is called something similar to the English word "milliard" in these countries. For example, French and Norwegian milliard, German Milliarde, Spanish millardo, Italian miliardo and Swedish miljard or milliard. (Spanish commonly uses "thousand million": mil millones.) See also False friends.

Origin late 17th century: From French, prefix bi- (twice) and -illion (from million). In imitation of one million million. Trillion: one million million million and so on.

Britain and Australia traditionally employed the international usage of 10¹², but have recently largely switched to the U.S. version of 10⁹.

Some non-English speaking countries are exceptions to the above rule and match the U.S. usage. A Brazillian Portuguese dictionary indicates 10¹² = trilhão, 10⁹ = bilhão. Similarly, transliterating from Greek, 10¹² = trisekatommurio, 10⁹ = disekatommurio.

History

In 1484 the French mathematician Nicolas Chuquet wrote in his article "Triparty en la science de nombres":

Au lieu de dire mille milliers, on dira million, au lieu de dire mille millions, on dira byllion, etc..., et tryllion, quadrilion...octylion, nonyllion, et ainsi des autres si plus oultre on voulait procéder (translation: Instead of saying thousand thousands, one will say million, instead of saying thousand million, one will say billion, etc..., and trillion, quadrillion, ..., octillion, nonillion, and similar as far as you want to proceed)

Around 1550 it seems that a Mr Pelletier introduced a second system, the term "milliard". This new system was used in England and Germany and part of the rest of Europe, but USA and France itself did not change to the new word.

Then it became really complicated:

1948 the "Conférence des Poids et des Mesures" proposes to use the Pelletier system in France.
1961 the "Journal Officiel" (the French official gazette) decided in favor of this proposal.
Some dictionaries recommend: "The terms billion, trillion, quintillion, quatrillion, quintillion and sextillion are to be avoided because of the ambiguity"
In 1974 British prime minister Harold Wilson abandoned the use of billion for 10¹², by explaining before the House of Commons the fact that "billion" from now on in British government statistics has the American use i.e. means 10⁹.

But there seems still to be uncertainty about this:

On one side, Graham Dane, a native English speaker, writes in the forum of the Online-vocabolary LEO.org:

The term milliard is very rare in British English. Billion has meant thousand million in financial writings for many years now, and is almost universal in other fields. Anyone using billion to mean million million is likely to be misunderstood.

On the other side, in the FAQs of alt.usage.english (the part by Ken Moore) states:

Despite this, the U.S. meaning is still rare outside journalism and finance, its introduction having served merely to create confusion. Throughout the U.K., a common response to the question "What do you understand by 'a billion'?" would be: "Well, I mean a million million, but I often don't know what other people mean." Few schoolchildren are confident of the meaning, though, again, 10¹² seems to be preferred.

One alternative approach is to use SI prefixes, that is, "Giga" for 10⁹ and "Tera" for 10¹². However, this alternative is often only used with specific units that commonly have such magnitudes. An additional problem is that if the unit is a computing term, the term may be interpreted as being a power of 2 instead of a power of 10 (see Binary prefix for more information on one approach to avoiding this).

Sources

Non-English words: Pocket dictionaries from Collins (London), Oxford, and Kunnskapsforlaget (Oslo).

millardo: The Royal Spanish Academy web site

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Billion."

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Abbreviations & Acronyms: Billion

The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted.
Entry	Source	Expression	Field
BIN	English	Billion Instructions	N/A
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Synonyms: Billion

Synonyms: a billion (adj), one million million (n), one thousand million (n). (additional references)

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Synonyms within Context: Billion

Context	Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus).
Five	Thousand, chiliad; millennium, thousand years, grand; myriad; ten thousand, ban, man; ten thousand years, banzai; lac, one hundred thousand, plum; million; thousand million, milliard, billion, trillion;
Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus.

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Crosswords: Billion

English words defined with "billion": a billion, abfarad ♦ bevatron, big bang theory, big-bang theory, billionaire, billionth ♦ g, Gb, gigabyte ♦ large-cap, large-capitalization, light hour ♦ milliard ♦ one-billionth ♦ small-cap, small-capitalization. (references)

Specialty definitions using "billion": Agricultural Credit Act of 1987 ♦ bbf, Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, BIP, BIPS, Bull Information Systems ♦ Campylobacteriosis, Commodity Credit Corporation, Compuware Corporation, Contract payments under AMTA, corpuscular cosmic rays, Cosmic rays, Cropland ♦ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Disaster payments ♦ Emerging Markets Program, Endocrine disruptor ♦ Farm Credit Act of 1971, Federation Against Software Theft, Food and fiber system, Food, Agriculture, Conservation, and Trade Act of 1990 ♦ Gateway 2000, Genome, Human, gigabit, GIGAWATT, Gigawatthour, gillion, Google ♦ Hewlett-Packard ♦ Infoshare, Intel Corporation, International Computers Limited plc ♦ Market loss payments, Most-favored-nation treatment ♦ Nano- ♦ Omnibus Consolidated and Emergency Appropriations Act, FY1999 ♦ Parts Per Billion, PPB, Production flexibility contract, Proterozoic Eon, Proton-Proton Chain ♦ Seymour Cray, software theft, supercomputer ♦ Thinking Machines Corporation. (references)

Etymologies containing "billion": trillion. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Billion" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

French (billion, trillion), German (billion, trillion).

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Modern Usage: Billion

Domain	Usage
Screenplays	How about a billion dollars? (Mr. Deeds; writing credit: Clarence Budington Kell; Robert Riskin) A billion chinese people can't be wrong. (The Lost Boys; writing credit: Jeffrey Boam, Janice Fischer, and James Jeremias.) About a billion. (Outbreak; writing credit: Laurence Dworet; Robert Roy Pool) A trillion's more than a billion, numbnuts. (Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me; writing credit: Mike Myers) Well, within a couple of billion miles, yes. (Doctor Who; writing credit: Basil Caplan; Martin Defalco)
Lyrics	Hundred billion castaways, looking for a home (Message In A Bottle; performing artist: The Police)
Clever	Indiana: 2 Billion Years Tidal Wave Free (references; author: unknown) I don't blame Congress. If I had $600 billion, I'd be irresponsible too. (references; author: unknown) There are three billion women who don't look like super models and only eight who do. (references; author: unknown)
Movie/TV Titles	Billion Dollar Brain (1967) Genesis: Four Billion Years In the Making (1999) Five Billion Years (1981) The Billion Dollar Threat (1979) Adventure: Billion Dollar Heist (1978)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Commercial Usage: Billion

Domain	Title
Books	Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth (reference) Microcosmos: Four Billion Years of Evolution from Our Microbial Ancestors (reference) We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle (reference) (more book examples)

Theater & Movies	Origins of Life: Four Billion Years in the Ocean (reference) The Billion Dollar Hobo (reference) Trigun Vol. 1 - The 60 Billion Dollar Man (reference) Nature - Triumph of Life, Vol. 1: The Four Billion Year War (reference) (more DVD examples; more video examples)

Music	Billion Dollar Babies (reference) Billion Dollar Baby (Revival Cast) (reference) (more classical music examples; more popular music examples)

High Tech	Q Billion (reference) (more camera examples; more video game examples; more computer examples; more electronic examples; more software examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Photo Album: Billion

Thumbnail	Description & Credit	Thumbnail	Description & Credit
	Though ozone may be diminishing on Earth, it is being manufactured one-half billion miles ...Credit: NASA.		Gen. Michael E. Ryan, Air Force chief of staff, told members of Congress Sept. 27, the Air Force needs $20 to $30 billion a year to solve its readiness challenges. He cited operations tempo, past underfunding of spares, aging infrastructure and aircraft a.
	When you add it all up, peanuts aren't just peanuts-they're quite an important crop. The United States produces between 3 and 4 billion pounds of peanuts annually, and about 40 percent of these go into processed foods, from salted peanuts, candy, crackers, and cookies to peanut butter. They're a major source of vegetable oil too. P.Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Scott Bauer..		ARS agricultural engineer Yud-Ren Chen is developing a computer-directed scanning system that could help speed inspection of the nearly 8 billion chickens processed annually through federally inspected U.S. plants. P.Credit: USDA ARS News; photo by Keith Weller..
	The mystery of the missing 13 billion dollars.Credit: Library of Congress.		Oh, for twelve billion dollars worth of ham and eggs!.Credit: Library of Congress.
	Logs on flat cars at Cascade, Idaho. The state of Idaho now has about 81 billion feet of old growth lumber standing, 8.8 percent is owned by the State; 30.3 percent privately owned and 60.9 percent by the federal government.Credit: Library of Congress.		Dixie's field of the cloth of gold. The nation's billion dollar crop.Credit: Library of Congress.
	Over 17 billion served.Credit: Library of Congress.		World peace tax fund : people morally opposed to paying taxes for war will be forced to pay $2.3 billion.Credit: Library of Congress.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Familiar Quotations: Billion

Author	Quotation
John Kenneth Galbraith	There's a certain part of the contented majority who love anybody who is worth a billion dollars.
Peter De Vries	Anyone informed that the universe is expanding and contracting in pulsations of eighty billion years has a right to ask, ''What's in it for me?''
Senator Everett M. Dirksen	A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Non-Fiction Usage: Billion

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		In 1997, diabetes cost the United States $98 billion. (references)
		Economically, an estimated $80 billion of total U.S. health care costs each year is attributable to smoking. (references)
		For the nation, these costs add up to an estimated $10 billion per year for medical and supportive care alone. (references)
Business		This was a total of nearly US$1 billion. (references)
		Its FY 2001 budget was approximately US$3.6 billion. (references)
		Total insurance profits in 1997 reached $5.7 billion. (references)
Children	Hungary	In 1999 such fines yielded $6 million (approximately 1.77 billion HUF) for rehabilitation funds for the disabled. (references)
	India	The Disabled Division of the Ministry of Welfare had a budget of more than $50 million (2.3 billion Rs) for the 2000-01 fiscal year for a number of organizations and committees at the national, regional, and local levels. (references)
Civil Liberties	Hungary	In 1999 the Government paid churches $21 million (5 billion HUF) in compensation for assets. (references)
Economic History	Malaysia	GNP: $82 billion. (references)
	Bolivia	GDP: $8.3 billion. (references)
	Brazil	GDP: $588 billion. (references)
Human Rights	South Africa	Victims' groups such as Khulumani called for the Government to set aside $650 million (6 billion Rands) for reparation funding according to the TRC formulas. (references)
	Equatorial Guinea	Since 1999 the Minister of Justice and a Special Commission on Corruption have been investigating judicial corruption, in particular, the diversion of $7 million (5.25 billion CFA francs) from judicial budgets. (references)
	Pakistan	The NAB was created in part to deal with as much as $4 billion (approximately PRs 208 billion) that is estimated to be owed to the country's banks (all of which are state-owned) by debtors, primarily from among the wealthy elite. (references)
Indigenous People	Colombia	The U'wa reserve measures 1.25 million acres and has estimated oil reserves of up to 1 billion barrels. (references)
	Australia	In 2001-02 the Government plans to spend approximately $1.2 billion (A$2.34 billion) on indigenous-specific programs in areas such as health, housing, education, and employment. (references)
	Indonesia	Then-Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri visited the province in May and September 2000, and then-President Wahid provided $110,000 (Rp. 1 billion) for the holding of the Papuan congress. (references)
Political Economy	Belgium	The 2000 estimated GDP was $230 billion. (references)
	SOUTH AFRICA	At end 2000 the NOFP stood at $9.5 billion. (references)
	OMAN	Oman's sovereign debt is estimated at $3 billion. (references)
Trade	Peru	Equity increased almost 7% to $2.0 billion. (references)
	Hong Kong	ADB's total lending in 2000 reached $5.9 billion. (references)
	Philippines	Exim's current exposure in the Philippines is about $ 2.3 billion. (references)
Travel	Qatar	The Ras Laffan port facility (US$ 1 billion), about 50 miles north of Doha on Qatar's East coast is used for exporting Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to world markets. (references)
	Ireland	An investment of over $3.0 billion has provided Ireland with a sophisticated digital telecommunications system which includes a direct dialing telephone service connecting every part of Ireland with over 90 percent of the rest of the world. (references)
Women	Kuwait	The Minister estimated the total cost of gender segregation at approximately $1.8 billion. (references)
Worker Rights	Ukraine	Official estimates placed arrears at 3.4 billion hryvnia as of October. (references)
	Austria	In July the first payments from the $400 million (6 billion ATS) fund were sent to victims of forced and slave labor. (references)
	Russia	The International Confederation of Trade Unions (ICFTU) contends that the total bill of wage arrears was more than $15 billion. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Speeches: Billion

Speaker	Term	Phrase(s)
Dwight Eisenhower	1953-1961	Across all continents, nearly a billion people seek, sometimes almost in desperation, for the skills and knowledge and assistance by which they may satisfy from their own resources, the material wants common to all mankind.
Jimmy Carter	1977-1981	More than a billion dollars of questionable transactions have been identified through their audit activities.
Bill Clinton	1993-2001	With over one billion dollars in discounts available this year, we are on our way to our goal of connecting every classroom and library to the Internet.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Usage Frequency: Billion

"Billion" is generally used as a cardinal number -- approximately 100.00% of the time. "Billion" is used about 4,748 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Cardinal Number	100%	4,748	2,061

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expressions: Billion

Expressions using "billion": a billion ♦ one billion ♦ two billion. Additional references.
Hyphenated Usage
	Beginning with "billion": billion-a-month, billion-ampere, billion-another, billion-a-year, billion-beating, billion-credit, billion-dollar, billion-dollar grass, billion-dollar-club, billion-letter, billion-lira, billion-lire, billion-plus, billion-pocket, billion-pound, billion-pound-a-year, billion-shilling, billion-strong, billion-worth, billion-year.
	Ending with "billion": half-a-billion, multi-billion.
	Containing "billion": multi-billion-dollar.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Billion

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day	Expression	Frequency per Day
billion sweep	559	billion contest pepsi	20
billion pepsi	487	330 billion cut tax	19
billion sweeps.com	486	billion dollar pepsi sweep	18
billion	266	billion play	18
billion pepsi sweep	138	billion pepsi win	17
billion dollar pepsi	118	billion dollar game pepsi	17
billion dollar pepsi sweepstake	116	billion pepsi play	16
billion pepsi sweepstake	91	automotive billion	14
350 billion cut tax	78	1.700 billion have india population soon total very will	12
1.7 billion india population	74	billion motor	12
billion com sweep	60	billion dollar home	12
billion sweepstake	55	billion win	11
billion dollar sweepstake	46	billion million trillion	11
billion contest dollar pepsi	44	billion dollar giveaway pepsi	11
2003 6 billion population	44	billion game pepsi	10
billion dollar	40	billion dollar win	10
billion weeps.com	36	billion dollar baby	9
billion sweep.com	25	12 billion capture image in space years	9
billion dollar sweep	24	350 billion cut dollar tax	8
billion sweepstakes.com	21	babe billion dollar	8
		billion part per	8
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Billion

Language		Translations for "billion"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Arabic		‏مليون مليون بإنكلتلرة, ‏البليون ألف مليون بالولايات الأميركية. (various references)

Asturian		un billón (one billion), dos billones (two billion). (various references)

Bemba		iminshipendwa iminshipendwa (one billion), iminishipendwa iminshipendwa ibili (two billion). (various references)

Bulgarian		милиард (milliard). (various references)

Cebuano		usa ka bilyon (one billion), duha ka bilyon (two billion). (various references)

Chamorro		un biyon (one billion), dos biyon (two billion). (various references)

Chinese		秭 , 十亿. (various references)

Czech		bilión. (various references)

Danish		milliard (thousand million). (various references)

Dutch		biljoen (thousand million), miljard (thousand million). (various references)

Ecuadorian Quechua		ishcai huaranca millón (two billion), huaranca millón (one billion). (various references)

Faeroese		tvey milliard (two billion), ein milliard (one billion). (various references)

Farsi		بیلیون . (various references)

Finnish		miljardi (milliard, thousand million). (various references)

French		milliard, trillion, billion. (various references)

Frisian		twa miljard (two billion), in miljard (one billion). (various references)

German		Billion (thousand million, trillion), Milliarde (billions, milliard, thousand million, thousand millions). (various references)

Greek		δισεκατομμύριο (milliard, thousand million). (various references)

Hebrew		ביליון. (various references)

Indonesian		satu milyar. (various references)

Italian		miliardo (milliard, thousand million). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		十億 (milliard), 兆 (indication, omen, portent, sign, signs, symptoms, trillion). (various references)

Japanese Katakana		じゅうおく (milliard), ちょう (block, bowels, butterfly, cake, condoling with, frivolity, government office, guts, hyper-, indication, intestines, leaf, mourning, omen, pitch, portent, sign, super-, tempo, time, tone, trillion, ultra-). (various references)

Korean		10억 (billions). (various references)

Macedonian		edna milijarda (one billion), dve milijardi (two billion). (various references)

Manx		billioon. (various references)

Pig Latin		illionbay

Portuguese		mil milhões (milligram, thousand million). (various references)

Provencal		un miliard (one billion), dos miliards (two billion). (various references)

Romanian		bilion (trillion), miliard (milliard). (various references)

Ruanda		imiriari zibiri (two billion), imiriari (one billion). (various references)

Russian		миллиард миллиардный. (various references)

Samoan		piliona (one billion), luapiliona (two billion). (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		spisak glumaca, naplaćivanje. (various references)

Spanish		billón (trillion). (various references)

Swedish		miljard (milliard, thousand million), biljon (trillion). (various references)

Thai		พันล้าน. (various references)

Turkish		milyar (gillion, milliard). (various references)

Turkmen		milliard (r). (various references)

Ukranian		більйон (milliard). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Billion

Derivations
	Words beginning with "billion": billionaire, billionaires, billions, billionth, billionths. (additional references)
	Words ending with "billion": multibillion, tourbillion. (additional references)
	Words containing "billion": multibillionaire, multibillionaires, multibillions, superbillionaire, superbillionaires, tourbillions. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Billion" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Abilio, Baglioni, Baillio, Baillon, Balafon, Baldion, ballin, Bellido, bellion, bellon, Belloni, Biblion, Bilalian, bilen, bilien, bilio, bilion, billi, billyo, Biolyon, birlinn, bolian, bollion, bollito, Brillouin, filikon, Filion, illion, sillion, Tillion, Tillyorn, vilion, Villino. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Billion"

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "billion" (pronounced bi"lyun)
6	b i" l y u n	multibillion.
5	-i" l y u n	civilian, jillion, million, multimillion, octillion, pavilion, pillion, trillion, vaudevillian, vermilion, Vermillion, zillion.
4	-l y u n	battalion, bullion, medallion, rebellion, scallion, scullion, stallion.
3	-y u n	banyan, Canyon, communion, companion, disunion, dominion, grunion, minion, nonunion, onion, opinion, pinion, reunion, union.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

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Anagrams: Billion

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "b-i-i-l-l-n-o"
	-1 letter: billon.
	-2 letters: blini.
	-3 letters: bill, blin, boil, boll, lino, lion, loin, nill, noil.
	-4 letters: bin, bio, ill, ion, lib, lin, lob, nib, nil, nob, obi, oil.
	-5 letters: bi, bo, in, li, lo, no, on.
	Words containing the letters "b-i-i-l-l-n-o"
	+1 letter: billions.
	+2 letters: billionth, billowing, bollixing.
	+3 letters: bidonville, billionths, binomially, ebullition, inviolable, inviolably, obligingly.
	+4 letters: bidonvilles, billionaire, cockbilling, ebullitions, globalising, globalizing, librational, overbilling, tourbillion.
	+5 letters: aboriginally, antiglobulin, billboarding, billionaires, blindfolding, disbowelling, fibrillation, indissoluble, indissolubly, insolubility, insolubilize, libidinously, multibillion, solubilising, solubilizing, tourbillions.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.