Dictionary

centibillion en · NUM

Etymology

From centi- (“hundred”) + billion.

Meanings

1. (rare) Hundred billion.
   • Seen from the present day—a time of general disrepair in banking and of a centibillion-dollar crisis in the so-called thrift industry—the turn of the century has a powerful nostalgic appeal. 1992, James Grant, “Democratizing Credit”, in Money of the Mind: Borrowing and Lending in America from the Civil War to Michael Milken, New York, N.Y.: Farrar Straus Giroux, →LCCN, page 76:
   • The centibillion-dollar question is, who can become the AOL or Microsoft of car portals? 2000 April 17, Rich Karlgaard, “Digital Rules: General Motors Is a Buy”, in Forbes, volume 165, number 9, New York, N.Y.: Forbes Inc., →ISSN, page 55, column 1:
   • In effect, today’s centibillion-dollar U.S. trade deficits are the financial costs of a Marshall Plan for the 1980s. […] Through trade, we help keep the global economy afloat but at the cost of bankruptcies and centibillion-dollar trade deficits. 1985 August 12, Lawrence Minard, “Noah’s ark, anyone?”, in Forbes, volume 136, number 4, New York, N.Y.: Forbes Inc., →ISSN, pages 76–77:
   • The Jews created a civilization out of the wilderness and a garden out of the desert, while the Arabs—even with their centibillions of petrodollars—continued to mire themselves in medieval tyranny and poverty. 2004, Jack Wheeler, “Aeschylus and America”, in Aman Verjee, Rod D. Martin, editors, Thank You, President Bush: Reflections on the War on Terror, Defense of the Family, and Revival of the Economy, Los Angeles, Calif.: World Ahead Publishing, Inc., →ISBN, page 103:
   • Well, we do persist: centibillion-dollar federal deficits still stretch as far as the eye can see, and other indicators of governmental and personal imprudence are rife. 1995 February 6, William S. Rukeyser, “Pardon Me, But Is This Armageddon?”, in Fortune, volume 131, number 2, New York, N.Y.: Time Inc., →ISSN, page 84, column 2:
   • As an example of how long Keynes’ influence has outlived the man himself, President Richard M. Nixon in 1971 after presenting a centibillion dollar national budget remarked fatalistically—and perhaps ironically: “I am now a Keynesian in economics!” 1973, Rose L. Martin, “High Finance in a Changing World”, in The Selling of America, Santa Monica, Calif.: Fidelis Publishers Inc., →LCCN, pages 231–232:

Forms

Relateds

centibillionaire · centimillion

Synonyms

hectobillion