entry
quinquagintillion
/ˌkwɪŋkwəˈdʒɪntɪljən/A number with 153 zeros after one
From Latin quīnquāgintā (fifty).
from Latin quīnquāgintā (“fifty”) + -illion.
from Latin quīnquāgintā (“fifty”) + -illion.
Word Ancestry
from Latin quīnquāgintā (“fifty”) + -illion.
from Latin quīnquāgintā (“fifty”) + -illion.
Picture a Roman clerk writing quīnquāgintā—“fifty”—on a wax tablet, and you are already holding the oldest piece of quinquagintillion. The other piece, -illion, belongs to the later European habit of building ever-larger number names from familiar numerical patterns. Put them together and “fifty” somehow becomes a number with 153 zeros after the one, a linguistic escalator carrying a modest Roman numeral into the far reaches of modern arithmetic. In ordinary writing, such names can be shorter than printing the full decimal expansion, though scientific notation leaves them looking rather overdressed. The word is also useful as comic exaggeration: claiming “a quinquagintillion dollars” turns impossible wealth into a joke you can pronounce.
The Story
Picture a Roman clerk writing quīnquāgintā—“fifty”—on a wax tablet, and you are already holding the oldest piece of quinquagintillion. The other piece, -illion, belongs to the later European habit of building ever-larger number names from familiar numerical patterns. Put them together and “fifty” somehow becomes a number with 153 zeros after the one, a linguistic escalator carrying a modest Roman numeral into the far reaches of modern arithmetic. In ordinary writing, such names can be shorter than printing the full decimal expansion, though scientific notation leaves them looking rather overdressed. The word is also useful as comic exaggeration: claiming “a quinquagintillion dollars” turns impossible wealth into a joke you can pronounce.
Modern Usage
A humorous hyperbolic amount of money or quantity
Kin & Kindred
From 'quīnquāgintā'·fifty
Derived Terms
English words from this root
From '-illion'·a suffix naming very large powers of ten
Derived Terms
English words from this root
Sources
Urban Dictionary
Wikipedia
Wiktionary