Word
byte
US/ˈbaɪt/
UK/bˈaɪt/
Definition
n. a unit of computer memory or data that is usually eight bits long.
n. a unit of digital information that most commonly consists of eight bits, used as the standard measure of computer storage and processing.
Examples
“A single byte can store one letter of the alphabet.”
“The text file is very small, taking up only a few hundred bytes of space on the drive.”
“While early computing systems experimented with various sizes, the eight-bit byte eventually became the industry standard, allowing for 256 unique values to be represented in a single unit.”
Examples
simple
“A single byte can store one letter of the alphabet.”
contextual
“The text file is very small, taking up only a few hundred bytes of space on the drive.”
complex
“While early computing systems experimented with various sizes, the eight-bit byte eventually became the industry standard, allowing for 256 unique values to be represented in a single unit.”
Usage
Countable noun; often used with prefixes like kilo-, mega-, and giga- to describe larger amounts of data.
Pitfall
The file size is 500 bit.
The file size is 500 bytes.
A byte is a larger unit than a bit; most file sizes are measured in bytes, kilobytes, or megabytes.
Etymology
An alteration of the word bite so it would not be accidentally misspelled as bit. Coined by Werner Buchholz in 1956, during the early design phase for the IBM 7030 Stretch computer.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Related words
Domain
Scan code
englishreference.com/q/byte