zillionaire, n.

zillionaire
http://www.oed.com/dictionary/zillionaire_n%3Ftab%3Dmeaning_and_use
Revised 2021

# zillionairenoun

## Factsheet

### What does the noun zillionaire mean?

There is one meaning in OED's entry for the noun zillionaire. See ‘Meaning & use’ for definition, usage, and quotation evidence.

### How common is the noun zillionaire?

Fewer than 0.01occurrences per million words in modern written English

1940 | 0.0011
1950 | 0.0017
1960 | 0.0026
1970 | 0.0036
1980 | 0.0049
1990 | 0.0054
2000 | 0.0062
2010 | 0.0075

### How is the noun zillionaire pronounced?

#### British English

/ˌzɪljəˈnɛː/
zil-yuh-NAIR

#### U.S. English

/ˌzɪljəˈnɛ(ə)r/
zil-yuh-NAIR
/ˈzɪljəˌnɛ(ə)r/
ZIL-yuh-nair

### Where does the noun zillionaire come from?

Earliest known use

1920s

The earliest known use of the noun zillionaire is in the 1920s.

OED's earliest evidence for zillionaire is from 1926, in Oakland (California) Tribune.

zillionaire is formed within English, by derivation.

Etymons: zillion n., ‑aire suffix.

### Nearby entries

1. Zilavka, n. 1926–
2. zilch, n. & adj. 1925–
3. zilch, v. 1957–
4. zill, n. 1754–
5. zilla, n. 1772–
6. -zilla, comb. form
7. zilladar, n. 1763–
8. Zil lane, n. 1985–
9. zilla parishad, n. 1957–
10. zillion, n. & adj. 1920–
11. zillionaire, n.1926–
12. zillionth, n. & adj. 1940–
13. zimb, n. 1790–
14. Zimba, n. 1625–
15. Zimbabwe, n. 1891–
16. Zimbabwean, adj. & n. 1961–
17. zimbel, n. 1888–
18. zimme, n. 1848–63
19. Zimmer, n. 1951–
20. zina, n. 1817–
21. zinc, n. 1651–

## Etymology

### Summary

Formed within English, by derivation.
Etymons: zillion n., ‑aire suffix.
< zillion n. + ‑aire suffix , after millionaire n., billionaire n., etc.

## Meaning & use

colloquial (originally U.S.).

1. 1926–
   A person of enormous wealth.
   1. 1926

      > A fortune left by his uncle, ‘a zillionaire’.

      Oakland (California) Tribune 13 December 26/3
   2. 1959

      > He's a zillionaire himself... He's crawling with money.

      I. Fleming, Goldfinger iv. 50
   3. 1969

      > A sprinkling of..Texas zillionaires, film stars, socialites and international playboys.

      Daily Telegraph 15 August (Colour Supplement) 21/3
   4. 1999

      > Silicon Valley zillionaires make in 15 minutes on the stock market what they pay their housekeepers in a year.

      Time 11 October 34/1
   U.S. English colloquial and slang
   1. jingle-boy a1640–
      A coin, spec. a sovereign; also, a man who has plenty of money in his pockets.
   2. four-millioneer 1667
      One who is worth four millions of money.
   3. plum 1709–74
      slang. A person in possession of one hundred thousand pounds; a rich person. Obsolete.
   4. millionary 1786–1882
      = millionaire, n. Obsolete.
   5. millionaire 1795–
      A person whose assets are worth at least a million pounds (dollars, etc.); a person of great wealth. In later use also (more loosely): a person who…
   6. money bag 1820–
      colloquial (occasionally derogatory). A person characterized as having or desiring money; a wealthy person. Also of a group of people, a country…
   7. billionaire 1841–
      A person possessing assets worth at least a billion dollars, pounds, or other monetary unit. Also more generally: a person who is extremely wealthy.
   8. millionist a1843–
      = millionaire, n.
   9. trimillionaire 1848–
      A person possessed of three millions of money (pounds, dollars, francs, etc.).
   10. multimillionaire 1858–
       A person with assets worth several or many millions (of dollars, pounds, etc.).
   11. trillionaire 1861–
       A person possessing assets worth at least a trillion dollars, pounds, or other monetary unit. Also more generally: a person who is extremely wealthy.
   12. millioner 1865–82
       = millionaire, n.
   13. quadrillionaire a1876–
       A person with assets worth at least a quadrillion (of dollars, pounds, etc.).
   14. thousandaire 1896–
       One who has a thousand pounds.
   15. milliardaire 1897–
       A person possessing a thousand million pounds (dollars, etc.); an immensely wealthy person.
   16. multibillionaire 1906–
       A person with assets worth several or many billions (of pounds, dollars, etc.).
   17. squillionaire 1914–
       A person who is extraordinarily wealthy.
   18. zillionaire 1926–
       A person of enormous wealth.
   19. jillionaire 1938–
       A person of enormous, esp. endless or unquantifiable, wealth.
   20. multi 1950–
       = multimillionaire, n.
   21. mega-millionaire 1968–
       A multimillionaire.
   View in Historical Thesaurus

## Pronunciation

### British English

/ˌzɪljəˈnɛː/
zil-yuh-NAIR

### U.S. English

/ˌzɪljəˈnɛ(ə)r/
zil-yuh-NAIR
/ˈzɪljəˌnɛ(ə)r/
ZIL-yuh-nair

####

##### Consonants

- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- ɬrhingyll
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing

Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛtl/ but /ˈpɛtl̩i/.

##### Vowels

- iːfleece
- ihappy
- ɪkit
- ɛdress
- atrap, bath
- ɑːstart, palm, bath
- ɒlot
- ɔːthought, force
- ʌstrut
- ʊfoot
- uːgoose
- əletter
- əːnurse
- ɪənear
- ɛːsquare
- ʊəcure
- eɪface
- ʌɪpride
- aʊmouth
- əʊgoat
- ɔɪvoice
- ãgratin
- ɒ̃salon
- ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
- ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)

##### Other symbols

- The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
- The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
- Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.

View the pronunciation model here.

####

##### Consonants

- ppea
- ttea
- kkey
- bbuy
- ddye*
- ɡguy
- tʃchore
- dʒjay
- ffore
- θthaw
- ssore
- ʃshore
- vvee
- ðthee
- zzee
- ʒbeige
- xloch
- hhay
- llay
- rray
- wway
- jyore
- mmay
- nnay
- ŋsing

* /d/ also represents a 'tapped' /t/ as in

Some consonants can take the function of the vowel in unstressed syllables. Where necessary, a syllabic marker diacritic is used, hence /ˈpɛd(ə)l/ but /ˈpɛdl̩i/.

##### Vowels

- ifleece, happy
- ɪkit
- ɛdress
- ætrap, bath
- ɑlot, palm, cloth, thought
- ɑrstart
- ɔcloth, thought
- ɔrnorth, force
- ʊfoot
- ugoose
- əstrut, comma
- ərnurse, letter
- ɪ(ə)rnear
- ɛ(ə)rsquare
- ʊ(ə)rcure
- eɪface
- aɪpride
- aʊmouth
- oʊgoat
- ɔɪvoice
- ɑ̃gratin
- æ̃salon
- ᵻ(/ɪ/-/ə/)
- ᵿ(/ʊ/-/ə/)

##### Other symbols

- The symbol ˈ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with primary stress.
- The symbol ˌ at the beginning of a syllable indicates that that syllable is pronounced with secondary stress.
- Round brackets ( ) in a transcription indicate that the symbol within the brackets is optional.

View the pronunciation model here.

####

Simple text respell breaks words into syllables, separated by a hyphen. The syllable which carries the primary stress is written in capital letters. This key covers both British and U.S. English Simple Text Respell.

##### Consonants

b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, t, v, w and z have their standard English values

- gguy
- jjay
- yyore
- chchore
- khloch
- shshore
- ththaw
- dhthee
- zhbeige

##### Vowels

- atrap
- ahpalm
- airsquare
- arstart
- arrcarry (British only)
- awthought
- ayface
- a(ng)gratin
- edress
- eefleece
- eerdeer
- errmerry
- ikit
- ighpride
- irrmirror
- olot (British only)
- ohgoat
- oogoose
- oorcure
- orforce
- orrsorry (British only)
- owmouth
- oyvoice
- o(ng)salon
- ustrut
- uhletter
- urnurse
- urrhurry
- uufoot

## Frequency

zillionaire typically occurs fewer than 0.01 times per million words in modern written English.

zillionaire is in frequency band 2, which contains words occurring between 0.001 and 0.01 times per million words in modern written English. More about OED's frequency bands

Frequency data is computed programmatically, and should be regarded as an estimate.

### Frequency of zillionaire, n., 1940–2010

* Occurrences per million words in written English

Historical frequency series are derived from Google Books Ngrams (version 2), a data set based on the Google Books corpus of several million books printed in English between 1500 and 2010.

The overall frequency for a given word is calculated by summing frequencies for the main form of the word, any plural or inflected forms, and any major spelling variations.

For sets of homographs (distinct entries that share the same word-form, e.g. mole, n.¹, mole, n.², mole, n.³, etc.), we have estimated the frequency of each homograph entry as a fraction of the total Ngrams frequency for the word-form. This may result in inaccuracies.

Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the Google Books corpus.

Decade | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
1940 | 0.0011
1950 | 0.0017
1960 | 0.0026
1970 | 0.0036
1980 | 0.0049
1990 | 0.0054
2000 | 0.0062
2010 | 0.0075

### Frequency of zillionaire, n., 2017–2024

* Occurrences per million words in written English

Modern frequency series are derived from a corpus of 20 billion words, covering the period from 2017 to the present. The corpus is mainly compiled from online news sources, and covers all major varieties of World English.

Smoothing has been applied to series for lower-frequency words, using a moving-average algorithm. This reduces short-term fluctuations, which may be produced by variability in the content of the corpus.

Period | Frequency per million words
--- | ---
2017 | 0.014
2018 | 0.013
2019 | 0.012
2020 | 0.01
2021 | 0.01
2022 | 0.0079
2023 | 0.0079
2024 | 0.0066

Originally published as part of the entry for zillion, n. & adj.

zillionaire, n. was revised in March 2021.

zillionaire, n. was last modified in July 2023.