byte

American  

[bahyt] / baɪt /

noun

Computers.

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.

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byte British  

/ baɪt /

noun

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

3. a subdivision of a word

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byte Scientific  

/ 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).

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byte Cultural  

1. 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.

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Usage

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).

Etymology

Origin of byte

First recorded in 1959; origin uncertain

Example Sentences

"Data is a sequence of bits and bytes," explains senior product developer, Alexey Mantsev, as film ran through a spool at his fingertips.

From BBC

“If it’s books or podcasts or something else, it’s just bits and bytes. We’re a music company, and we have no intention to add other things into our music experience.”

From Los Angeles Times

The cameras, part of a network that workers previously had to watch, provide billions of bytes of data for the AI system to digest.

From Seattle Times

“They managed to reach close to Atiq and his brother on the pretext of recording a byte and fired at them from close range. Both sustained bullet injuries on the head,” he said.

From Washington Times

Poor folks, just trying to do their jobs, scrolling for juicy sound bytes served up the night before by the messiest sports stars, and then they come across Jokic saying something like this:

From Washington Post