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sagan

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Sagan¹

  • /ˈseɪɡən/

Rhymes with -eɪɡən

Where it comes from

The unit is derived from the phrase "billions and billions (of stars)", erroneously attributed to the American astronomer Carl Sagan. The lower bound of such a number must be two billion plus two billion, or four billion. Johnny Carson popularized the phrase through his occasional impersonation of Sagan throughout his career.

proper noun Sagans

  1. A surname.

noun Sagans · sagan

  1. humorous, slang A large number equal to at least four billion. Today, there is a well-known joke unit of measurement called a Sagan. a Sagan is four billion—the smallest number that could fit the description "billions and billions."

Sagan²

proper noun

  1. A village in Sardasht Rural District, in the Central District of Bashagard County, Hormozgan Province, Iran.

Sagan³

proper noun

  1. alternative Alternative form of Sakan (village in West Azerbaijan, Iran).

Sagan⁴

proper noun

  1. A river in southern Ethiopia. I had resolved to pass along the eastern shore of Lake Ganjule, in order to solve the problem of the sources of the river Sagan, the largest affluent of Lake Stefanie, which was supposed to flow out of Lake Ganjule. This I found to be not the case. The sources of the Sagan lie east of the south end
  2. A town in southern Ethiopia, named for the river.

sagan⁵

noun sagans

  1. Alternative letter-case form of Sagan Part of it was that I just couldn't deal with a piece of primal matter floating around for sagans of years, eroding away until it became a nice, shiny, sharp-as-William-F.-Buckley's-tongue sword, with the old familiar "S" symbol coincidentally engraved on its hilt.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: gagen, sagers, savage, kagan, fagan, sagar, sanger, sago, ragan, kaganof, salk, sapien, spragg, saeger, siegal, sandler

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Cite this
MLA

"sagan." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/sagan. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

sagan. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/sagan

Chicago

"sagan." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/sagan.

BibTeX
@misc{sagan_2026,
  title = {sagan},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/sagan},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}