Indefinite and fictitious numbers

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

The English language has a number of words for indefinite and fictitious numbers - inexact terms of indefinite size, used for comic effect, for exaggeration, as placeholder names, or when precision is unnecessary or undesirable.

Contents

[edit] Umpteen

Umpteen is a term for an unspecified but reasonably large number, used in a humorous fashion or to imply that it is not worth the effort to pin down the actual figure. Despite the -teen ending, which would seem to indicate that it lies between 12 and 20, umpteen can be used in ways implying it is much larger than that—if it ever could be pinned down.

The word is apparently derived from the slang ump(ty), a dash in Morse code (of imitative origin), plus -teen.[1] Derived terms using the same root are umpty-ump and, rarely, umpty-tump.

[edit] Zillion

Imaginary words ending in the sound "-illion", such as zillion,[2] jillion,[3] and gazillion,[4] are often used as fictitious names for an unspecified, large number by analogy to names of large numbers such as billion and trillion. Their size is dependent upon the context, but can typically be considered large enough to be unfathomable by the average human mind.

These terms are often used as hyperbole or for comic effect, or in loose, unconfined conversation to present an un-guessably large number. Since these are undefined, they have no mathematical validity and no accepted order, since none is necessarily larger or smaller than any of the others.

Many similar words are used, such as ananillion,[5] bajillion,[6] bazillion,[7] dillion,[8] gadzillion,[9] gagillion,[10] gajillion,[11] godzillion,[12] gonillion,[13] grillion,[14] hojillion,[15] julillion,[16] kabillion,[17] kajillion,[18] katrillion,[19] killion,[8] robillion,[20] skillion,[21] squillion,[2] and umptillion.[22]

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."

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ American Heritage Dictionary, 4th edn.
  2. ^ 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."
  3. ^ p. 1103, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, vol. 2, edited by Eric Partridge, Tom Dalzell, and Terry Victor, Taylor & Francis, 2006, ISBN 041525938X.
  4. ^ Included in the standard dictionary included with Microsoft Word word-processing software.
  5. ^ Williams, Michael A. (1994). Fruit on the Crow's Mind. The Times.  ISBN 0-368-55763-0. p. 148: "I hate swimming an ananillion times more than I hate bananas."
  6. ^ 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..."
  7. ^ 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."
  8. ^ a b Resop, Jay (2004-04-01). Neglected Character Deathmatch: Zadok vs Birdo vs Geno. Neglected Mario Characters. SMBHQ. Retrieved on 2008-05-23. “Duh nah timez a billion million zillion trillion killion dillion!”
  9. ^ 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..."
  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. ^ 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..."
  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. ^ Goldberg, Steve (1986). Truth and Love. Random House.  ISBN 0-380-80632-0. p. 302: "The curtains had a gonillion dust particles on them, like grandmother's dentures."
  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. ^ Holkins, Jerry; Mike Krahulik (2001-06-22). Magic: It's What's For Dinner!. Penny Arcade.
  16. ^ Himmelstein, Sandra (1997). The Lampost Next Door. Picador.  ISBN 0-678-73773-2. p. 67 "Make a wish, on any one of the julillion stars."
  17. ^ 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."
  18. ^ 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."
  19. ^ Howe, James (2003). Tales From the House of Bunnicula #4: Screaming Mummies of the Pharaoh's Tomb II. Atheneum Books for Young Readers.  ISBN 0-689-83954-5 p.2 "He [Uncle Harold] has been writing for a katrillion years and his books have sold a katrillion copies, even if he has gotten some stinko reviews."
  20. ^ Hanneman, George (1988). The Creeping Game. The Times.  ISBN 0-233-83992-X. p. 19 "It was the robillionth time they had done it, but it was as fun as ever before."
  21. ^ 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."
  22. ^ 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."