億 means “hundred million”

おく · oku

Also: 10**8

On'yomi (Chinese reading)

オク

JLPT N2 · Taught in grade 4 · 15 strokes

The story

A person (亻) beside 意, thought: picture someone straining to imagine a number too big to hold. Japanese counts in blocks of four zeros, so after 万 comes 億, a hundred million, and 一億総中流, "a hundred million, all middle class", was how postwar Japan saw itself.

Used in 一億 (ichioku, one hundred million), 数億 (suuoku, several hundred million), and 億万長者 (okumanchouja, multimillionaire)

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Readings from KANJIDIC2, © EDRDG, CC BY-SA.