What does order of magnitude mean?
• ORDER OF MAGNITUDE (noun) The noun ORDER OF MAGNITUDE has 2 senses: 1. a degree in a continuum of size or quantity 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 Familiarity information: ORDER OF MAGNITUDE used as a noun is rare.