How is the term six figures defined?

Answer 1

We see or hear this term in several places. One might refer to the amount of money someone makes or that something costs. The "six figure" number is one that has six digits. There are a number of them, but the first one is 100,000 and it comes right after the last five figure number, 99,999. The last six figure number is, of course, 999,999, which is just before 1,000,000. Now that we have that out of the way, let's jump. The term is tossed out there usually to indicate that something just breaks into the hundred thousand units range. We need examples. "He graduated from college and went to work pulling down six figures in his first year." That's an example of the "threshold" use meaning that the person specified started working for a bit over $100,000 per year. Here's another example that is similar. "The website was so popular that hits in the first year went into the six figure range." There were over 100,000 hits on the site in the first year. But there is another use other than the "near" end of the scale. Let's look at the other end of the six figure range. "The darn building project for the new church extension rocketed over budget and went into the high six figures." There's a suggestion here that the project mentioned cost something roughly in the $700,000 to $900,000 range or anywhere in there. That's the "high six figures" we mentioned. "Foot traffic in the new mall went into the high six figures in the first six months they were open." The number of people in the mall is being expressed here, and the ball park figure is 700,000 or a bit less, or on up to 800,000 or a bit more. The "high six figures" here is a chunk under a million, but not close enough to say "nearly a million" and be "clear" about it. And what about mid six figures? That around 500,000 or about half a million. We usually call that "half a mill" for short. Sometimes it's hard to be "specific" about something so "general" in nature.