Million

A million is the number 1,000,000. In decimal notation it is written as 1,000,000 and in scientific terms as 10^6. It is equal to one thousand thousands. In most modern usages, especially in the short scale, a million is 10^6; the long scale uses the same value for million, while higher powers of ten have different names.

The word million comes from Old French million, from Italian milione, from Latin mīllīō, formed from mille meaning thousand with an augmentative suffix. The English term entered from French in the medieval period and has remained standard for centuries.

In science and everyday use, the prefix mega- denotes 10^6, and the symbol M is used in the International System of Units to represent this factor. In computing, a megabyte can mean 1,000,000 bytes or 1,048,576 bytes (2^20), depending on context and convention.

Roman numerals do not have a single standard symbol for a million; a line (vinculum) over a numeral such as M is sometimes used to indicate multiplication by 1,000, so M̄ can denote 1,000,000 in certain notations.

Translations exist in many languages, for example un millón in Spanish, une million in French, eine Million in German, and un milione in Italian. In finance and statistics, a figure presented as “a million” commonly serves as a convenient rounded amount for large populations, budgets, or measurements, and may be used hyperbolically to imply a very large, but uncertain, number.