byte

[ bahyt ]
See synonyms for byte on Thesaurus.com
nounComputers.
  1. adjacent bits, usually eight, processed by a computer as a unit.

  2. the combination of bits used to represent a particular letter, number, or special character.

Origin of byte

1
First recorded in 1959; origin uncertain

Words that may be confused with byte

Words Nearby byte

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use byte in a sentence

  • Dan shalbe a serpent in the waye/ and an edder in the path/ and byte the horse heles/ so yt his ryder shall fall backwarde.

  • Theye byte sore, and venomouslye, and defende themselves stoutlye.

    All About Dogs | Charles Henry Lane

British Dictionary definitions for byte

byte

/ (baɪt) /


nouncomputing
  1. a group of bits, usually eight, processed as a single unit of data

  2. the storage space in a memory or other storage device that is allocated to such a group of bits

  1. a subdivision of a word

Origin of byte

1
C20: probably a blend of bit 4 + bite

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for byte

byte

[ bīt ]


  1. A sequence of adjacent bits operated on as a unit by a computer. A byte usually consists of eight bits. Amounts of computer memory are often expressed in terms of megabytes (1,048,576 bytes) or gigabytes (1,073,741,824 bytes).

usage For byte

The word bit is short for binary digit. A bit consists of one of two values, usually 0 or 1. Computers use bits because their system of counting is based on two options: switches on a microchip that are either on or off. Thus, a computer counts to seven in bits as follows: 0, 1, 10 [2], 11 [3], 100 [4], 101 [5], 110 [6], 111 [7]. Notice that the higher the count, the more adjacent bits are needed to represent the number. For example, it requires two adjacent bits to count from 0 to 3, and it takes three adjacent bits to count from 0 to 7. A sequence of bits can represent not just numbers but other kinds of data, such as the letters and symbols on a keyboard. The sequence of 0s and 1s that make up data are usually counted in groups of 8, and these groups of 8 bits are called bytes. In origin byte is simply a respelling of bite, a byte being the number of bits that a computer can take at one bite, so to speak. The spelling change was intended to avoid confusion in written documents, since bite becomes identical to bit if the e at the end of bite is accidentally dropped. To transmit one keystroke on a typical keyboard requires one byte of information (or 8 bits). To transmit a three-letter word requires three bytes of information (or 24 bits).

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Cultural definitions for byte

byte

[ (beyet) ]


In computer technology, a unit of information made up of bits (often eight bits). The memory capacity of a typical personal computer runs from millions to billions of bytes.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.