Trillion
English usage
In Brazil and most English-speaking countries, a trillion is 1012 or 1 000 000 000 000 (a one followed by twelve zeros) or one million million or (1 million)2. It is a thousand billion (English usage) or one thousandth of a quadrillion (English usage). While the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand traditionally employed the continental European usage, some years ago they largely switched to the more common English usage of 1012.
Non-English Usage
In many continental European languages, a trillion (or its translated equivalent) is 1018 or 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 (a one followed by eighteen zeros) or 1 million million million or (1 million)3.
History
The history of trillion is described in the billion article.
Ambiguity
For reasons of the ambiguity described above, it is preferable to avoid the usage of the term trillion and instead use the corresponding millions (million million and million million million) or powers of ten (10^12 and 10^18) or SI prefixes (tera- and exa-) as appropriate.
However, many people use the word trillion to mean an unspecified large number. Then it falls into the same category as umpteen and gazillion.
See also
