Before we wrote this article, we would have sworn that the word “gazillionaire” was nothing more than slang and not in the dictionary with anything more than that level of acceptance. But we were wrong.
Webster’s does recognize gazillionaire, but also equates it to zillionaire. Both words designate a person with significantly more than average wealth. In concert with our economy and growing wealth, the first use of these words only date to the 1980’s, with the similar terms bazillionaire, bajillionaire, and squillionaire. All these words are interchangeable, have the same meaning, and are considered slang terms by many.
Joe did an IPO and sold a gazillion dollars in stock.
Sally was named president of the company and they agreed to pay her so much she is now a bazillionaire.
Hollywood is filled with gazillionaires who have egos larger than their brains!
But then there is “nevermind.” This is a non-word mistaken for a word because of how it is used. These two words are spoken together so often that many would fail the test: “Are these two words, or one?” If you saw it in print as a single word, or even worse on the Internet, would you just gloss over it and assume the writer knew his or her “stuff?”
Nevermind is actually two words, never and mind, we just run them together in conversation and they seem to take on a mental projection of a single word.
