byte.
A short sequence of bits (binary digits) that can be operated on as a unit by a computer; the smallest usable machine word.
Meaning & usage
A short sequence of bits (binary digits) that can be operated on as a unit by a computer; the smallest usable machine word.
A unit of computing storage equal to eight bits, which can represent any of 256 distinct values.
The word “hello” fits into five bytes of ASCII code.
Where this word comes from
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.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.