One million (1,000,000) or one thousand thousand, is the natural number following 999,999 and preceding 1,000,001. The word is derived from the early Italian millione (milione in modern Italian), from mille, "thousand", plus the augmentative suffix -one.
In scientific notation, it is written as 1×106 or just 106. Physical quantities can also be expressed using the SI prefix mega, when dealing with SI units. For example, 1 megawatt equals 1,000,000 watts.
The meaning of the word "million" is common to the short scale and long scale numbering systems, unlike the larger numbers, which have different names in the two systems.
The million is sometimes used in the English language as a metaphor for a very large number, as in "Never in a million years" and "You're one in a million", or a hyperbole, as in "I've walked a million miles" and "You've asked the million-dollar question".
Read more about Million: Visualizing One Million, Selected 7-digit Numbers (1,000,000 – 9,999,999)
Famous quotes containing the word million:
“Perhaps anxious politicians may prove that only seventeen white men and five negroes were concerned in the late enterprise; but their very anxiety to prove this might suggest to themselves that all is not told. Why do they still dodge the truth? They are so anxious because of a dim consciousness of the fact, which they do not distinctly face, that at least a million of the free inhabitants of the United States would have rejoiced if it had succeeded. They at most only criticise the tactics.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Three million of such stones would be needed before the work was done. Three million stones of an average weight of 5,000 pounds, every stone cut precisely to fit into its destined place in the great pyramid. From the quarries they pulled the stones across the desert to the banks of the Nile. Never in the history of the world had so great a task been performed. Their faith gave them strength, and their joy gave them song.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“The ancestral deed is thought and done,
And in a million Edens fall
A million Adams drowned in darkness,
For small is great and great is small,
And a blind seed all.”
—Edwin Muir (1887–1959)