megayear n.

a million years

  • 1935 J. W. Campbell Night in Astounding Stories Oct. 20/2 page image John W. Campbell, Jr. bibliography

    With what we have learned in the uncounted dusty megayears since, we might have been able to save him.

  • 1963 P. Anderson Territory in Analog Science Fact-Science Fiction June 64/2 Poul Anderson bibliography

    Now humans, the experts tell me, got started way back when, as ground apes that turned carnivore when the forests shrank up in Africa for lots of megayears.

  • 1986 V. Vinge Marooned in Realtime 19 Vernor Vinge bibliography

    I was born about ten megayears after the Singularity—the Extinction, Juan calls it.

  • 1994 S. M. Baxter Ring (1996) vi. 80 Stephen Baxter bibliography

    Sam wants to go to Tau Ceti and build houses under the light of a new sun; the dark possibilities of five megayears hence couldn’t be of less interest to him.

  • 1995 D. Brin Brightness Reef (1996) 172 David Brin

    Now let’s see if encephalization has changed during the last megayear.

  • 2015 J. Sandford & Ctein Saturn Run l. 373 page image Ctein John Sandford bibliography

    I imagine that millennia, or megayears ago, when the face-to-face contactees got into their planet[-]killing disagreements, they didn’t much concern themselves with exactly which members of the other species had committed the unforgivable offense.


Research requirements

any evidence 1935

Earliest cite

John W. Campbell, Jr. 'Night'

Research History
Mike Christie submitted a 1966 cite from a reprint of Poul Anderson's 1963 "Territory".
Ralf Brown submitted a cite from a 1991 reprint of Vernor Vinge's 1986 "Marooned in Realtime".

Last modified 2021-01-12 01:33:20
In the compilation of some entries, HDSF has drawn extensively on corresponding entries in OED.