Definition of "billon" [bil•lon]

• An alloy of gold or silver with a greater proportion of another metal, such as copper, used in making coins. (noun)
• An alloy of silver with a high percentage of copper, used in making medals and tokens. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "By the end of our first year in office, the economy was beginning to recover and by our second budget, for fiscal 1979, we had cut the federal deficit almost by half, to $40 billon."
• "The lender's banking unit did get a boost from Student Loan Corp. and saw total loans up 5% to $52.5 billon."
• "Spending on personal consumption, health care, education, mass transit, and construction for home weatherization and infrastructure repair all were found to create more jobs per $1 billon in expenditures than military spending does."