miliardi

Miliardi is the plural form of miliardo, the Italian numerical term for 1,000,000,000 (one thousand million). In contemporary Italian, a miliardo represents 10^9. The term is used across everyday language, media, economics, science and government to describe large quantities, such as populations, budgets, or measurements.

Relation to other large-number terms: After miliardo, the next named scale is bilione (10^12), followed by biliardo (10^15) and trilione (10^18). In English, the word billion is commonly used for 10^9 in the short scale; many European languages align with the 10^9 value for miliardo in modern usage.

Etymology and usage notes: Miliardo is formed from the prefix mili- “thousand” and the suffix -ardo, a common pattern in Italian for large-number names. The plural miliardi is used when referring to more than one such amount, e.g., due miliardi di euro, tre miliardi di dollari.