What's the difference between billion and spat?

Billion


Definition:

  • (n.) According to the French and American method of numeration, a thousand millions, or 1,000,000,000; according to the English method, a million millions, or 1,000,000,000,000. See Numeration.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Project grants to selected State and local agencies amounted to about $.8 billion.
  • (2) Quotes Justin Timberlake: "Even more importantly customers love it … over 20 million listening on iTunes Radio, listened to over a billion songs.
  • (3) For more than half a century, Saudi leaders manipulated the United States by feeding our oil addiction, lavishing money on politicians, helping to finance American wars, and buying billions of dollars in weaponry from US companies.
  • (4) Its struggling mobile phone business resulted in a net loss of 136 billion yen for the three months to September, although that figure was smaller than analysts had predicted.
  • (5) "It will mean root-and-branch change for our banks if we are to deliver real change for Britain, if we are to rebuild our economy so it works for working people, and if we are to restore trust in a sector of our economy worth billions of pounds and hundreds of thousands of jobs to our country."
  • (6) The deal will also be scrutinised to see if its claims of new billions to jump start world economies prove to be inflated.
  • (7) Nick Nuttall, a spokesman for UNEP, said the latest findings should encourage more governments to follow moves by some politicians to invest billions of dollars in clean energy and efficiency as a way of curbing greenhouse gases.
  • (8) On the other hand, if the world population grew to 1-2 billion fertile women, the million tons of contraceptive steroids needed would require an inexpensive total synthesis.
  • (9) By easing these huge flows of hundreds of billions across borders, the single currency played a material role in causing the continent's crisis.
  • (10) The US farm bill is a multi-billion dollar piece of legislation that controls the federal government's spending on farm subsidies, food for the domestic poor, agriculture conservation programmes, and overseas food aid , among other things.
  • (11) And the number has risen sharply since 1980, with nearly 1 billion people added to the ranks of the poor over the past 35 years.
  • (12) The total earnings gap between the 2 groups was +17.6 billion (1986 dollars).
  • (13) • Mubarak becomes a major mediator in the Arab-Israeli peace process, remaining a consistent US ally bolstered by billions of dollars in American aid.
  • (14) Many alternative, more reliable sources of public finance are out there – a tax on financial transactions would provide billions of dollars of new money for developing countries to tackle climate change head on."
  • (15) Sir Ken Morrison, supermarkets Jersey trusts protect the billion-pound wealth of the 83-year-old Bradford-born Morrisons supermarket founder and a large number of his family members.
  • (16) It forecasts the pressure on forests will increase as world population grows by more than 2.5 billion people in the next 40 years.
  • (17) This would deplete the budget by a further $3.53 billion over the same four-year period," his report says.
  • (18) The world's population was 5.2 billion in 1990, which is increasing at an annual rate of 90 million, mainly in the developing countries.
  • (19) Ukraine has said it needs $35 billion over the next two years to stave off bankruptcy.
  • (20) The U.S. also needs significant regulatory and financial support, including "billions in loan guarantees," the report said.

Spat


Definition:

  • () imp. of Spit.
  • (n.) A young oyster or other bivalve mollusk, both before and after it first becomes adherent, or such young, collectively.
  • (v. i. & t.) To emit spawn; to emit, as spawn.
  • (n.) A light blow with something flat.
  • (n.) Hence, a petty combat, esp. a verbal one; a little quarrel, dispute, or dissension.
  • (v. i.) To dispute.
  • (v. t.) To slap, as with the open hand; to clap together; as the hands.
  • () of Spit

Example Sentences:

  • (1) But the Franco-British spat sparked by Dave's rejection of Angela and Nicolas's cunning plan to save the euro has been given wings by news the US credit agencies may soon strip France of its triple-A rating and is coming along very nicely, thank you. "
  • (2) If wide notice is taken of a current spat over what we can read about Shakespeare’s sexuality into the sonnets in the correspondence columns of the Times Literary Supplement, Sonnet 20 may be a future favourite at civil unions.
  • (3) He wanted to stay on longer than the traditional retirement age but became involved in a nasty spat with the then-chairman, Peter Sutherland.
  • (4) He’s spat on and has wee thrown at him.” Rutherford is also concerned about the governance of the sport.
  • (5) Venom entered the eyes of 9 patients spat at by the spitting cobra, Naja nigricollis.
  • (6) The British parliament’s vote against airstrikes has long been cited by Obama and others as a causal factor but Kerry made the link explicit just a week after a diplomatic spat with the UK’s prime minister, Theresa May, over a United Nations resolution that condemned Israel.
  • (7) The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, has attempted to seize the initiative in the bitter spat on energy prices by pledging a 20-month freeze .
  • (8) She had been sworn at and spat on – anything to force the expression they wanted on to her face.
  • (9) Some said they saw stones; others said they had been spat at.
  • (10) The England winger has been training with the under-21s for the past two and a half months after being frozen out by Mauricio Pochettino in the wake of his public spat with Nathan Gardiner, Tottenham’s fitness coach, following a win against Aston Villa in November.
  • (11) By the time the latest spat came before the FCC, Karr argues, net activists had sharpened their tactics and raised their game.
  • (12) Still alive, he was then surrounded by people who cursed and spat at him, kicked him in the head and tried to hit him with a chair.
  • (13) The Greece midfielder Giannis Maniatis was so enraged after a training ground spat that he booked a himself on a flight back to Athens before being persuaded not to walk out on Fernando Santos’s squad.
  • (14) Mariano Rajoy said he did not want the dispute to "go further", after a spat about fishing escalated into a full-blown diplomatic row with Britain.
  • (15) They are saying she needs to realise that she needs to build allies.” The Tory source spoke out after Kenneth Clarke blew into the open a spat between the Conservative leadership and the home secretary’s team after two of May’s special advisers declined to take part in telephone canvassing in the recent Rochester and Strood byelection.
  • (16) It is understood Cameron and the Lib Dem leader have agreed to cool the coalition tensions that have boiled over into public spats – and there were signs yesterday that was having some effect after it was clear that Labour was making capital from the dispute.
  • (17) Padoan said the US's budget spat posed significant threats to the US and the global economy but said that Europe presented a larger challenge.
  • (18) However, after several years of improving relations and increasing trade, China and Japan have much to lose from a prolonged deterioration in ties, and will be wary of letting the spat get out of hand.
  • (19) Ahmadinejad has been drawn into a bruising power struggle with the conservatives, many of them his former supporters, and has mounted serious challenges to Khamenei, such as engaging in public spats with top-level officials.
  • (20) Former Netanyahu aide lambasts US ambassador in heated spat Read more “These provocative acts are bound to increase the growth of settler populations, further heighten tensions and undermine any prospects for a political road ahead,” Ban told a United Nations security council meeting on the Middle East.