order of magnitude
n 1: a degree in a continuum of size or quantity; "it was on the
order of a mile"; "an explosion of a low order of
magnitude" [syn: {order}, {order of magnitude}]
2: a number assigned to the ratio of two quantities; two
quantities are of the same order of magnitude if one is less
than 10 times as large as the other; the number of magnitudes
that the quantities differ is specified to within a power of
10 [syn: {order of magnitude}, {magnitude}]