Milliard
a.k.a. Billion
An old word for a thousand million, the same as a US billion; on trading desks it is shortened to "yard".
In plain English
An old word for a thousand million, the same as a US billion; on trading desks it is shortened to "yard".
A milliard is one thousand million, which Americans and most English speakers today call a billion. The word survives in many European languages and in old British usage, and it gave the forex desk one of its favourite bits of slang: a yard. Saying "a yard of yen" instead of "a billion yen" avoids a costly mishearing between "million" and "billion" on a noisy phone line.
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