Nearly everyone that I have encountered is well aware of the existence of the number trillion, save for children perhaps; scientists will tell you that they estimate the Andromeda Galaxy contains one trillion stars. However, my question is what number would you use to describe something that is a thousand times greater, or more, than a trillion; what number comes after trillion?
A quick inquiry online provides results indicating that there definitely are English words for numbers far beyond trillion, but why is it that hardly anyone knows of a single one? Why aren’t even a handful of these numbers regularly taught in school? It might seem that these numbers are all unnecessary, but I can think of a several statistics that use them off the top of my head: there are 6 quadrillion gallons of water in the Great Lakes, 20 quintillion animals on the Earth, and 7 octillion atoms in the average human body, not to mention that the sun weighs 4 nonillion pounds.
Many English speakers across the world, including scientists, will tend to list several smaller, subsequent numbers when they are describing vast quantities to an audience, which means that the numbers they listed need to be multiplied to find the actual number to which they are referring, for instance, they say million billion instead of quadrillion and billion billion rather than quintillion.
Well, if we wish to use the appropriate numbers, we must know their names. What are the numbers beyond trillion?
Large Numbers in English
When I first discovered these enormous numbers, I was overwhelmed by their long and seemingly chaotic names, but when I found a pattern, it quickly became clear. I like to look at numbers by sets of threes, which are known in mathematics as periods. The first period, or set of three digits, is known as the ones, and the second is the thousands; after these two periods, a simple pattern begins with the millions place.
Million is the combination of the Italian word mille and the Italian suffix one, which produces the Italian milione or English million. After the millions place, you simply use one of the following prefixes to increase the value of the number and add it to -illion from million.
- Bi – two
- Tri – three
- Quad – four
- Quint – five
- Sex – six
- Sept – seven
- Oct – eight
- Non – nine
- Dec – ten
Fun fact: you may have noticed that the last four prefixes look quite similar to the abbreviations for the last four of our calendar months. This is because most of these prefixes and our calendar months originate from Latin. September, October, November, and December used to be the seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth months respectively. September means seven, October means eight, November means nine, and December means ten in Latin.
With these prefixes, we can easily construct much larger numbers: million, billion, trillion, quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion, nonillion, and decillion.
Immense Numbers in English
Maybe you are wondering if there are numbers beyond even decillion; maybe you wish to fully explore this inane world of largely impractical numbers, like I did. Well, don’t you worry, I have numbers that are up to 1 novemoctogintillion times larger than decillion to share with you.
After decillion, the numbers tend to add a slight variation of the previous prefixes to decillion (prefix means 10) until you reach vigintillion (prefix means 20), at which point you repeat the cycle. This continues until you arrive at centillion (prefix means 100), however, this alternate source suggests that you can even apply the prefixes to centillion until you reach the supposed millillion.
List of Large Numbers: (Prefix Number) Name
- (1) million
- (2) billion
- (3) trillion
- (4) quadrillion
- (5) quintillion
- (6) sextillion
- (7) septillion
- (8) octillion
- (9) nonillion
- (10) decillion
- (11) undecillion
- (12) duodecillion
- (13) tredecillion
- (14) quattuordecillion
- (15) quindecillion
- (16) sexdecillion
- (17) septendecillion
- (18) octodecillion
- (19) novemdecillion
- (20) vigintillion
- (21) unvigintillion
- (22) duovigintillion
- (23) trevigintillion
- (24) quattuorvigintillion
- (25) quinvigintillion
- (26) sexvigintillion
- (27) septenvigintillion
- (28) octovigintillion
- (29) novemvigintillion
- (30) trigintillion
- (31) untrigintillion
- (32) duotrigintillion
- (33) tretrigintillion
- (34) quattuortrigintillion
- (35) quintrigintillion
- (36) sextrigintillion
- (37) septentrigintillion
- (38) octotrigintillion
- (39) novemtrigintillion
- (40) quadragintillion
- (41) unquadragintillion
- (42) duoquadragintillion
- (43) trequadragintillion
- (44) quattuorquadragintillion
- (45) quinquadragintillion
- (46) sexquadragintillion
- (47) septenquadragintillion
- (48) octoquadragintillion
- (49) novemquadragintillion
- (50) quinquagintillion
- (51) unquinquagintillion
- (52) duoquinquagintillion
- (53) trequinquagintillion
- (54) quattuorquinquagintillion
- (55) quinquinquagintillion
- (56) sexquinquagintillion
- (57) septenquinquagintillion
- (58) octoquinquagintillion
- (59) novemquinquagintillion
- (60) sexagintillion
- (61) unsexagintillion
- (62) duosexagintillion
- (63) tresexagintillion
- (64) quattuorsexagintillion
- (65) quinsexagintillion
- (66) sexsexagintillion
- (67) septensexagintillion
- (68) octosexagintillion
- (69) novemsexagintillion
- (70) septuagintillion
- (71) unseptuagintillion
- (72) duoseptuagintillion
- (73) treseptuagintillion
- (74) quattuorseptuagintillion
- (75) quinseptuagintillion
- (76) sexseptuagintillion
- (77) septenseptuagintillion
- (78) octoseptuagintillion
- (79) novemseptuagintillion
- (80) octogintillion
- (81) unoctogintillion
- (82) duooctogintillion
- (83) treoctogintillion
- (84) quattuoroctogintillion
- (85) quinoctogintillion
- (86) sexoctogintillion
- (87) septenoctogintillion
- (88) octooctogintillion
- (89) novemoctogintillion
- (90) nonagintillion
- (91) unnonagintillion
- (92) duononagintillion
- (93) trenonagintillion
- (94) quattuornonagintillion
- (95) quinnonagintillion
- (96) sexnonagintillion
- (97) septennonagintillion
- (98) octononagintillion
- (99) novemnonagintillion
- (100) centillion
I will admit that the majority of these numbers have virtually no practical uses, especially when considering that centillion is roughly 1 treseptuagintillion (which is 1 followed by 222 zeros) times larger than the number of atoms in the entire, observable universe!
What is your favorite, nearly irrelevant number?
Onward American 