order of magnitude

British

noun

Also called: order. the approximate size of something, esp measured in powers of 10

the order of magnitude of the deficit was as expected
their estimates differ by an order of magnitude

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

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The technique enabled clear detection of CMC layers just 10 nm thick and visualized structures spanning four orders of magnitude within a single image.

From Science Daily

That could speed up certain computations by orders of magnitude.

From Barron's

Then they reduced the light intensity by more than an order of magnitude and measured the electronic response 200 femtoseconds later.

From Science Daily

The new analysis improves previous limits by an order of magnitude, sharply narrowing where new physics could be hiding.

From Science Daily

In hardware tests and simulations, the 3D chip beats 2D chips by roughly an order of magnitude.

From Science Daily

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023