Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The number 10 raised to the power 100 (10100), written out as the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun cardinal The number 10100, written as 1 followed by 100 zeros.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a cardinal number represented as 1 followed by 100 zeros (ten raised to the power of a hundred)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Coined at the age of nine by Milton Sirotta, nephew of Edward Kasner (1878–1955), American mathematician.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Made up in 1938 by the nine year old Milton Sirrota, the nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner who had asked Milton for the hypothetical number of 10 to the 100th.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word googol.

Examples

  • June 30th, 2008 at 10: 32 am googol is 1 followed by 100 zeros. gladyz Says:

    10 Weird Science Facts You Didn’t Know 2006

  • Famously, Page and Brin rented a garage as their startup home and, on September 4, 1998, launched Google Inc, a deliberate mis-spelling of the word googol, the mathematical term for a one followed by a hundred zeros.

    Home | Mail Online 2009

  • In a nod to their geeky roots as children of computer science and math professors, Page and Brin had derived the name from the mathematical term "googol" - a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

    JournalStar.com - News Articles 2008

  • First off, they specifically took the name of the company from the word googol, which is a very large number 1 with one hundred zeros after it, after first thinking of the word googolplex, which is 1 followed by a googol of zeros, as a symbol of the immense amount of data their search engine would search through.

    Comic Book Urban Legends Revealed #155 | Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book Resources 2008

  • The name itself springs from a number—a googol is a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

    The Elegant Solution Matthew E. May 2007

  • Even more impressive is a googol, which is greater than the number of particles in the known universe:

    Born to Believe Andrew Newberg 2006

  • Even more impressive is a googol, which is greater than the number of particles in the known universe:

    Born to Believe Andrew Newberg 2006

  • Google probably wanted to use 10e100, since that character string means 10 to the 100 power - in other words, a googol.

    Medlogs - Recent stories 2010

  • Google probably wanted to use 10e100, since that character string means 10 to the 100 power - in other words, a googol.

    Search Engine Optimization and Marketing News provided by Cumbrowski.com Barry Schwartz 2010

  • A googol is a one followed by a hundred zeros -- or, in technical terms, "a freakin 'ginormous number."

    PCWorld 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • not many people know what a googol is :)

    January 6, 2007

  • How about a googolplex? Googol is the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros, or 10 raised to the power of 100. A googolplex is 10 raised to the power of a googol! That's a lot of damn zeros.

    January 6, 2007

  • When spelled correctly, it looks more evil, almost Tolkienish (next to Gorgoroth?), which of course would go against Google's "Do no Evil" credo. I'm sure this was deliberate.

    January 17, 2009

  • What was deliberate, Marco?

    January 17, 2009

  • Choosing to name the company, 'Google' rather than Googol?

    January 18, 2009