Multimillion

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. Worth or amounting to many millions, used to describe very large sums of money or vast numbers of things
2. Running into the millions in value or quantity, such as a fortune or an audience of enormous size
3. Involving a sum or count of many millions, typically applied to wealth, contracts, or population figures

Etymology: Multimillion is a deliberately modern formation: the prefix "multi-", from Latin "multus" meaning "many" or "much", attached to "million." The prefix has been used in English since the Middle Ages, which is why the compound feels so straightforward, yet the combination is recent and built on the spot rather than inherited. "Million" has a more winding past. It traces back through Old French "milion" and Italian "milione" to the Latin "mille" (a thousand), with "-one" as an augmentative ending, so the word literally means something like "big thousand." It reached English in the Middle Ages as "milioun," and the "multi-" prefix joined it later to create a word for amounts of several or many millions.