endian
Meanings
adj
- Preceded by a qualifying word: of a computer: storing multibyte numbers with the most significant byte at a particular memory address; for example, at the smallest address (big-endian) or the largest address (little-endian).
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From end + -ian (suffix meaning ‘one from, belonging to, like, or relating to’ forming nouns, and meaning ‘from, like, or related to’ forming adjectives), originally in the noun Big-Endian coined by the Anglo-Irish author Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) in his novel Gulliver’s Travels (1726). Swift wrote of an emperor of Lilliput who, after his son cuts his finger when opening an egg at the large end, commands his subjects to open them at the small end; those who rebel by opening their eggs at the large end are called “Big-Endians”. The term was applied in the computing context by the Israeli-American computer scientist Danny Cohen (1937–2019) in 1980.
Related words
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