megabyte

See also: Megabyte and mégabyte

English

Etymology

From mega- +‎ byte.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈmɛɡəˌbaɪt/
  • Audio (Southern England):(file)

Noun

megabyte (plural megabytes)

  1. (computing, formal) One million (106, or 1,000,000) bytes or 1,000 kilobytes.
    • 1964, System/360 System Summary, IBM, page 27:
      The IBM 2301 Drum Storage (Figure 20) provides random access storage of approximately 4 million bytes at a data rate of 1.2 megabytes per second.
    • 1973, Reference Manual for IBM 3340/3344 Disk Storage, IBM, page 3:
      This 70-megabyte [69,889,536 bytes] data module contains fixed heads in addition to the normal access heads.
    • 2002 April 30, Matt Hamblen, “Next generation wireless: Will users pay?”, in CNN[1]:
      AT&T Wireless Services Inc. in Redmond, Washington, is currently offering $1 per megabyte as its cheapest rate for General Packet Radio Service wireless service, which can provide 20K to 40K bit/sec. throughput. But that price is only if a subscriber buys the most megabytes per month now being offered: 200MB of data for $199 a month.
    • 2009 May 14, Marguerite Reardon, “Verizon Netbook to hit stores this weekend”, in CNN[2]:
      The overage charge on this plan has been reduced to 10 cents per megabyte over the limit. Previously, the company charged 25 cents per megabyte for overages.
  2. (computing, informal) A mebibyte.
    • 2003, Michael Meyers, Managing and Troubleshooting PCs, page 933:
      One megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes. One megahertz, however is a million Hertz.
    • 2004, Kerry Cox, Christopher Gerg, Managing Security with Snort and IDS Tools, page 92:
      Defaults to 2 megabytes (2,097,152 bytes).
    • 2006, Eriq Oliver Neale, Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Unleashed, page 290:
      By default, each log file [...] is exactly 5 megabytes (5,242,880 bytes) in size.

Synonyms

Coordinate terms

Derived terms

Translations

Czech

Alternative forms

Etymology

From mega- +‎ byte.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ˈmɛɡabajt]

Noun

megabyte m inan

  1. megabyte

Declension

Further reading

  • megabyte”, in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu (in Czech)
  • megabyte”, in Akademický slovník cizích slov at prirucka.ujc.cas.cz [Academic dictionary of foreign words] (in Czech), 1995

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English megabyte. By surface analysis, mega- +‎ byte.

Noun

megabyte m (invariable)

  1. (computing) megabyte

Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English megabyte.

Pronunciation

 
  • (Brazil) IPA(key): /ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaj.t͡ʃi/ [ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaɪ̯.t͡ʃi], /ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbajt͡ʃ/ [ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaɪ̯t͡ʃ]
    • (Southern Brazil) IPA(key): /ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbajt͡ʃ/ [ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaɪ̯t͡ʃ], /ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaj.t͡ʃi/ [ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaɪ̯.t͡ʃi]
  • (Portugal) IPA(key): /ˌmɛ.ɡɐˈbajt/ [ˌmɛ.ɣɐˈβajt]

Noun

megabyte m (plural megabytes)

  1. (computing) megabyte (one million bytes)

Synonyms

Coordinate terms

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English megabyte, equivalent to mega- +‎ byte.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /meɡaˈbait/ [me.ɣ̞aˈβ̞ai̯t̪]
  • Rhymes: -ait
  • Syllabification: me‧ga‧byte

Noun

megabyte m (plural megabytes)

  1. (computing) megabyte

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Further reading