The word "million"

Question

When was the word "million" forst used?

Clive · Accepted Answer

Hi,

You'd think it was from a time when people first wanted or needed to think about very large numbers of things, wouldn't you?

It was used several times by Shakespeare.

eg in Hamlet

I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was
never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the
play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas
caviare to the general:

eg again from Hamlet

Dost thou come here to whine?
To outface me with leaping in her grave?
Be buried quick with her, and so will I:
And, if thou prate of mountains, let them throw
Millions of acres on us, till our ground,
Singeing his pate against the burning zone,
Make Ossa like a wart!

Possibly it was used even earlier than Elizabethan times. I don't know.

Clive

Coloraday · Answer

In Oxford dictionary, it is said that the word is from late Middle English and maybe formed of Mille (thousand) and the augmentative suffix -one.

Ferdis · Answer

You can also check here: http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=million&searchmode=none

mid-14c., from O.Fr. million (late 13c.), from It. millione (now milione), lit. "a great thousand," augmentative of mille "thousand," from L. mille. Used mainly by mathematicians until 16c. India, with its love of large numbers, had names before 3c. for numbers well beyond a billion. The ancient Greeks had no name for a number greater than ten thousand, the Romans for none higher than a hundred thousand. "A million" in Latin would have been decies centena milia, lit. "ten hundred thousand." Million to one as a type of "long odds" is attested from 1761.

The word "million"

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