Is a number considered a word

Reddit, help settle an argument: Are Numbers Words?

A friend of mine recently alerted me to an odd type of «word.» See if you can guess what the following mean:

• l10n
• i18n
• d11n

Yeah, me neither. These are some examples of a lexical hybrid that goes by the name numeronym. If you’ve never heard of it, that’s because it’s a term that’s not yet appearing in any major dictionaries. (This also means that there’s no registered pronunciation. I’m personally inclined to pronounce it as noo-MER-o-nim.)

In the broadest definition, a numeronym is a word that involves numbers. The term actually covers several types of number-based constructs. For example, one source says that the term was originally used to describe words based on telephone numbers, like 1-800-PLUMBER.

Another type of numeronym is probably familiar — a word in which the number is just a phonetic replacement for some of the letters. For example, there’s K-9 for canine, and we’ve all seen brand names (not necessarily good ones) in which a digit appears phonetically: tr8n.net, Roth2U, Vital 4U, 2nite vodka. The language of texting is big on this type of numeronym: gr8 for great, l8r for later, 1ce for once, etc.

Then there’s a type of numeronym in which the number really does represent a number but appears as part of an abbreviation. Some examples are WWI and WWII for those particular conflicts, and G8 and G20 for the economic summit meetings involving those respective numbers of countries. A slight variation on this is the term Y2K, where 2K stands for 2000 of the famous Year 2000 problem that never appeared.

The terms 24/7 and 180 or 360 (e.g., I did a 180) are considered by some to be numeronyms. Whether these really qualify depends perhaps on how metonymously one wants to interpret the term. Similar examples might be 411 for information or 10-4 (derived from radio talk) for ok.

But if you go looking for numeronyms these days, the standard example— if «standard» can be applied to this particular term — is something like the words at the beginning of the article. These are, for lack of a better description, words that use numbers algorithmically. It’ll be clear when I show you what those numeronyms actually stand for:

• l10n: localization
• i18n: internationalization
• d11n: documentation

As you can see, these numeronyms are formed by including the first letter, the last letter (optional), and a digit to represent the number of letters in between. There are now all kinds of examples of this type of numeronym: c14n (canonicalization), i14y (interoperability), p13n (personalization), n11n (normalization). Almost all of these are computer terms. (Should you be wondering, the non-numeronym versions of these words are widely used in IT, odd as they might seem.) There are just a few examples from other fields; easily the best one is E15 for Eyjafjallajökull, the Icelandic volcano of recent fame. Supposedly P45 is used as a numeronym for the made-up word Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis. (Our own Ben Zimmer mentioned P45 and i18l in a blog post on the Oxford University Press blog some years ago, in fact.)

There’s an excellent origin story for this type of numeronym. It involves the erstwhile computer manufacturer Digital Equipment Company. Here’s the tale as it appears in the Tutor Gig online encyclopedia:

… the first numeronym of this kind was «S12n», the electronic mail account name given to Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) employee Jan Scherpenhuizen by a system administrator because his surname was too long to be an account name. Colleagues who found Jan’s name unpronounceable often referred to him verbally as «S12n». The use of such numeronyms became part of DEC corporate culture.

This explanation is not dated, but discussion of similar terms (like those I listed) suggests that this type of numeronym has been in use since about the mid-80s and almost certainly spread out from DEC to other parts of the computer world.

Some people might think that these types of algorithmic numeronyms are the result of laziness. Certainly there’s no way you can tell what any of these terms represent unless someone clues you in. But really it’s just a matter of convenience. Consider this story told by an old-timer in the computer industry:

At one point in one of the early meetings, someone was writing the long «internationalization» word yet again on the white board. Since we didn’t like writing this long word all the time, someone suggested we find an abbreviation. After some discussion (I don’t know if the idea was borrowed from somewhere else), the suggestion of «i18n» was agreed upon and since then that SIG «standardized» upon it.

You can certainly sympathize with the person holding the whiteboard marker. Or for that matter, the journalist assigned to write about the Icelandic volcano.

Shortening cumbersome words has a more contemporary benefit as well. With the 140-character limit imposed by Twitter, people have started to find numeronyms handy in their tweets. The translator Luke Spear recently noted on his website that he was proud of having invented the compact and now widespread hashtag #xl8 to stand for translate. (In this case, of course, the x signifies trans.)

I was slightly surprised to discover that there’s one numeronym that I use quite frequently in my work at Microsoft: W3C. This stands for the World Wide Web Consortium, which is the governing body for the Web. This term appears all over the documentation that I deal with every day.

W3C notwithstanding, I don’t think we’ll be using any of the more abstruse numeronyms in the documentation. But if I run across one now and then, at least I’ll know what it’s called.

Learn how your words are counted in IELTS. This page explains about counting words, numbers and symbols. You need to know how words are counted for IELTS listening, reading and writing. If you make mistakes with the number of words, you can lose points which can affect your band score.

How words are counted in IELTS

1. Numbers, dates and time are counted as words in writing. For example 30,000 = one word  /  55  = one word  /  9.30am = one word / 12.06.2016 = one word. “Six million” is counted as two words in IELTS writing. In listening, 30,000 is counted as one number and 9.30AM is also counted as one number.

2. Dates written as both words and numbers are counted in this way: 12th July = one number and one word in IELTS listening and as two words in IELTS writing.

3. Symbols with numbers are not counted. For example, 55% = one number (the symbol “%” is not counted as a word). However, if you write “55 percent” it is counted as one word and one number.

4. Small words such as “a” or “an” are counted. All prepositions, such as “in” or “at” are also counted. All words are counted.

5. Hyphenated words like “up-to-date” are counted as one word.

6. Compound nouns which are written as one word are also counted as one word. For example, blackboard = one word.

7. Compound nouns which are written as two separate words, are counted as two words. For example, university bookshop = two words.

8. All words are counted, including words in brackets. For example in IELTS writing, “The majority of energy was generated by electricity (55%).”. This sentence is counted as 9 words. The number in brackets is counted. Brackets can be used in IELTS Writing Task 1, but not in IELTS Listening or IELTS Reading.

9. Some people have asked me if words such as “the” are counted only once regardless of how many times they are used. It is best to illustrate: “The man walked into the shop for the newspaper” = 9 words.

10. Contractions are counted as: it’s = one word / it is = two words.

Tips

• Get useful tips and advice about the word count for IELTS writing.
• Start learning how to write compound nouns correctly. Some are one word and some are written as two words. If you make a mistake, it can affect your band score. Here’s a link to tips about compound nouns.
• Learn more about the meaning of ” no more than one word and/or a number” in listening and reading, by watching the video on the main IELTS Listening Page.

This article is about number words. For the mathematical notation of numbers, see numeral system.

In linguistics, a numeral in the broadest sense is a word or phrase that describes a numerical quantity. Some theories of grammar use the word «numeral» to refer to cardinal numbers that act as a determiner that specify the quantity of a noun, for example the «two» in «two hats». Some theories of grammar do not include determiners as a part of speech and consider «two» in this example to be an adjective. Some theories consider «numeral» to be a synonym for «number» and assign all numbers (including ordinal numbers like the compound word «seventy-fifth») to a part of speech called «numerals».^[1][2] Numerals in the broad sense can also be analyzed as a noun («three is a small number»), as a pronoun («the two went to town»), or for a small number of words as an adverb («I rode the slide twice»).

Numerals can express relationships like quantity (cardinal numbers), sequence (ordinal numbers), frequency (once, twice), and part (fraction).^[3]

Identifying numerals[edit]

Numerals may be attributive, as in two dogs, or pronominal, as in I saw two (of them).

Many words of different parts of speech indicate number or quantity. Such words are called quantifiers. Examples are words such as every, most, least, some, etc. Numerals are distinguished from other quantifiers by the fact that they designate a specific number.^[3] Examples are words such as five, ten, fifty, one hundred, etc. They may or may not be treated as a distinct part of speech; this may vary, not only with the language, but with the choice of word. For example, «dozen» serves the function of a noun, «first» serves the function of an adjective, and «twice» serves the function of an adverb. In Old Church Slavonic, the cardinal numbers 5 to 10 were feminine nouns; when quantifying a noun, that noun was declined in the genitive plural like other nouns that followed a noun of quantity (one would say the equivalent of «five of people»). In English grammar, the classification «numeral» (viewed as a part of speech) is reserved for those words which have distinct grammatical behavior: when a numeral modifies a noun, it may replace the article: the/some dogs played in the park → twelve dogs played in the park. (Note that *dozen dogs played in the park is not grammatical, so «dozen» is not a numeral in this sense.) English numerals indicate cardinal numbers. However, not all words for cardinal numbers are necessarily numerals. For example, million is grammatically a noun, and must be preceded by an article or numeral itself.

Numerals may be simple, such as ‘eleven’, or compound, such as ‘twenty-three’.

In linguistics, however, numerals are classified according to purpose: examples are ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.; from ‘third’ up, these are also used for fractions), multiplicative (adverbial) numbers (once, twice, and thrice), multipliers (single, double, and triple), and distributive numbers (singly, doubly, and triply). Georgian,^[4] Latin, and Romanian (see Romanian distributive numbers) have regular distributive numbers, such as Latin singuli «one-by-one», bini «in pairs, two-by-two», terni «three each», etc. In languages other than English, there may be other kinds of number words. For example, in Slavic languages there are collective numbers (monad, pair/dyad, triad) which describe sets, such as pair or dozen in English (see Russian numerals, Polish numerals).

Some languages have a very limited set of numerals, and in some cases they arguably do not have any numerals at all, but instead use more generic quantifiers, such as ‘pair’ or ‘many’. However, by now most such languages have borrowed the numeral system or part of the numeral system of a national or colonial language, though in a few cases (such as Guarani^[5]), a numeral system has been invented internally rather than borrowed. Other languages had an indigenous system but borrowed a second set of numerals anyway. An example is Japanese, which uses either native or Chinese-derived numerals depending on what is being counted.

In many languages, such as Chinese, numerals require the use of numeral classifiers. Many sign languages, such as ASL, incorporate numerals.

Larger numerals[edit]

English has derived numerals for multiples of its base (fifty, sixty, etc.), and some languages have simplex numerals for these, or even for numbers between the multiples of its base. Balinese, for example, currently has a decimal system, with words for 10, 100, and 1000, but has additional simplex numerals for 25 (with a second word for 25 only found in a compound for 75), 35, 45, 50, 150, 175, 200 (with a second found in a compound for 1200), 400, 900, and 1600. In Hindustani, the numerals between 10 and 100 have developed to the extent that they need to be learned independently.

In many languages, numerals up to the base are a distinct part of speech, while the words for powers of the base belong to one of the other word classes. In English, these higher words are hundred 10², thousand 10³, million 10⁶, and higher powers of a thousand (short scale) or of a million (long scale—see names of large numbers). These words cannot modify a noun without being preceded by an article or numeral (*hundred dogs played in the park), and so are nouns.

In East Asia, the higher units are hundred, thousand, myriad 10⁴, and powers of myriad. In the Indian subcontinent, they are hundred, thousand, lakh 10⁵, crore 10⁷, and so on. The Mesoamerican system, still used to some extent in Mayan languages, was based on powers of 20: bak’ 400 (20²), pik 8000 (20³), kalab 160,000 (20⁴), etc.

Numerals of cardinal numbers[edit]

The cardinal numbers have numerals. In the following tables, [and] indicates that the word and is used in some dialects (such as British English), and omitted in other dialects (such as American English).

This table demonstrates the standard English construction of some cardinal numbers. (See next table for names of larger cardinals.)

Value	Name	Alternate names, and names for sets of the given size
0	Zero	aught, cipher, cypher, donut, dot, duck, goose egg, love, nada, naught, nil, none, nought, nowt, null, ought, oh, squat, zed, zilch, zip, zippo, Sunya (Sanskrit)
1	One	ace, individual, single, singleton, unary, unit, unity, Pratham (Sanskrit)
2	Two	binary, brace, couple, couplet, distich, deuce, double, doubleton, duad, duality, duet, duo, dyad, pair, span, twain, twin, twosome, yoke
3	Three	deuce-ace, leash, set, tercet, ternary, ternion, terzetto, threesome, tierce, trey, triad, trine, trinity, trio, triplet, troika, hat-trick
4	Four	foursome, quadruplet, quatern, quaternary, quaternity, quartet, tetrad
5	Five	cinque, fin, fivesome, pentad, quint, quintet, quintuplet
6	Six	half dozen, hexad, sestet, sextet, sextuplet, sise
7	Seven	heptad, septet, septuple, walking stick
8	Eight	octad, octave, octet, octonary, octuplet, ogdoad
9	Nine	ennead
10	Ten	deca, decade, das (India)
11	Eleven	onze, ounze, ounce, banker’s dozen
12	Twelve	dozen
13	Thirteen	baker’s dozen, long dozen[6]
20	Twenty	score,
21	Twenty-one	long score,[6] blackjack
22	Twenty-two	Deuce-deuce
24	Twenty-four	two dozen
40	Forty	two-score
50	Fifty	half-century
55	Fifty-five	double nickel
60	Sixty	three-score
70	Seventy	three-score and ten
80	Eighty	four-score
87	Eighty-seven	four-score and seven
90	Ninety	four-score and ten
100	One hundred	centred, century, ton, short hundred
111	One hundred [and] eleven	eleventy-one[7]
120	One hundred [and] twenty	long hundred,[6] great hundred, (obsolete) hundred
144	One hundred [and] forty-four	gross, dozen dozen, small gross
1000	One thousand	chiliad, grand, G, thou, yard, kilo, k, millennium, Hajaar (India)
1024	One thousand [and] twenty-four	kibi or kilo in computing, see binary prefix (kilo is shortened to K, Kibi to Ki)
1100	One thousand one hundred	Eleven hundred
1728	One thousand seven hundred [and] twenty-eight	great gross, long gross, dozen gross
10000	Ten thousand	myriad, wan (China)
100000	One hundred thousand	lakh
500000	Five hundred thousand	crore (Iranian)
1000000	One million	Mega, meg, mil, (often shortened to M)
1048576	One million forty-eight thousand five hundred [and] seventy-six	Mibi or Mega in computing, see binary prefix (Mega is shortened to M, Mibi to Mi)
10000000	Ten million	crore (Indian)(Pakistan)
100000000	One hundred million	yi (China)

English names for powers of 10[edit]

This table compares the English names of cardinal numbers according to various American, British, and Continental European conventions. See English numerals or names of large numbers for more information on naming numbers.

	Short scale	Long scale
Value	American	British (Nicolas Chuquet)	Continental European (Jacques Peletier du Mans)
100	One
101	Ten
102	Hundred
103	Thousand
106	Million
109	Billion	Thousand million	Milliard
1012	Trillion	Billion
1015	Quadrillion	Thousand billion	Billiard
1018	Quintillion	Trillion
1021	Sextillion	Thousand trillion	Trilliard
1024	Septillion	Quadrillion
1027	Octillion	Thousand quadrillion	Quadrilliard
1030	Nonillion	Quintillion
1033	Decillion	Thousand quintillion	Quintilliard
1036	Undecillion	Sextillion
1039	Duodecillion	Thousand sextillion	Sextilliard
1042	Tredecillion	Septillion
1045	Quattuordecillion	Thousand septillion	Septilliard
1048	Quindecillion	Octillion
1051	Sexdecillion	Thousand octillion	Octilliard
1054	Septendecillion	Nonillion
1057	Octodecillion	Thousand nonillion	Nonilliard
1060	Novemdecillion	Decillion
1063	Vigintillion	Thousand decillion	Decilliard
1066	Unvigintillion	Undecillion
1069	Duovigintillion	Thousand undecillion	Undecilliard
1072	Trevigintillion	Duodecillion
1075	Quattuorvigintillion	Thousand duodecillion	Duodecilliard
1078	Quinvigintillion	Tredecillion
1081	Sexvigintillion	Thousand tredecillion	Tredecilliard
1084	Septenvigintillion	Quattuordecillion
1087	Octovigintillion	Thousand quattuordecillion	Quattuordecilliard
1090	Novemvigintillion	Quindecillion
1093	Trigintillion	Thousand quindecillion	Quindecilliard
1096	Untrigintillion	Sexdecillion
1099	Duotrigintillion	Thousand sexdecillion	Sexdecilliard
10120	Novemtrigintillion	Vigintillion
10123	Quadragintillion	Thousand vigintillion	Vigintilliard
10153	Quinquagintillion	Thousand quinvigintillion	Quinvigintilliard
10180	Novemquinquagintillion	Trigintillion
10183	Sexagintillion	Thousand trigintillion	Trigintilliard
10213	Septuagintillion	Thousand quintrigintillion	Quintrigintilliard
10240	Novemseptuagintillion	Quadragintillion
10243	Octogintillion	Thousand quadragintillion	Quadragintilliard
10273	Nonagintillion	Thousand quinquadragintillion	Quinquadragintilliard
10300	Novemnonagintillion	Quinquagintillion
10303	Centillion	Thousand quinquagintillion	Quinquagintilliard
10360	Cennovemdecillion	Sexagintillion
10420	Cennovemtrigintillion	Septuagintillion
10480	Cennovemquinquagintillion	Octogintillion
10540	Cennovemseptuagintillion	Nonagintillion
10600	Cennovemnonagintillion	Centillion
10603	Ducentillion	Thousand centillion	Centilliard

There is no consistent and widely accepted way to extend cardinals beyond centillion (centilliard).

Myriad, Octad, and -yllion systems[edit]

The following table details the myriad, octad, Chinese myriad, Chinese long and -yllion names for powers of 10.

There is also a Knuth-proposed system notation of numbers, named the -yllion system.^[8] In this system, a new word is invented for every 2ⁿ-th power of ten.

Value	Myriad System Name	Octad System Name	Chinese Myriad Scale	Chinese Long Scale	Knuth-proposed System Name
100	One	One	一	一	One
101	Ten	Ten	十	十	Ten
102	Hundred	Hundred	百	百	Hundred
103	Thousand	Thousand	千	千	Ten hundred
104	Myriad	Myriad	萬 (万)	萬 (万)	Myriad
105	Ten myriad	Ten myriad	十萬 (十万)	十萬 (十万)	Ten myriad
106	Hundred myriad	Hundred myriad	百萬 (百万)	百萬 (百万)	Hundred myriad
107	Thousand myriad	Thousand myriad	千萬 (千万)	千萬 (千万)	Ten hundred myriad
108	Second Myriad	Octad	億 (亿)	億 (亿)	Myllion
1012	Third myriad	Myriad Octad	兆	萬億	Myriad myllion
1016	Fourth myriad	Second octad	京	兆	Byllion
1020	Fifth myriad	Myriad second octad	垓	萬兆
1024	Sixth myriad	Third octad	秭	億兆	Myllion byllion
1028	Seventh myriad	Myriad third octad	穰	萬億兆
1032	Eighth myriad	Fourth octad	溝 (沟)	京	Tryllion
1036	Ninth myriad	Myriad fourth octad	澗 (涧)	萬京
1040	Tenth myriad	Fifth octad	正	億京
1044	Eleventh myriad	Myriad fifth octad	載 (载)	萬億京
1048	Twelfth myriad	Sixth octad	極 (极) (in China and in Japan)	兆京
1052	Thirteenth myriad	Myriad sixth octad	恆河沙 (恒河沙) (in China)	萬兆京
1056	Fourteenth myriad	Seventh octad	阿僧祇 (in China); 恆河沙 (恒河沙) (in Japan)	億兆京
1060	Fifteenth myriad	Myriad seventh octad	那由他, 那由多 (in China)	萬億兆京
1064	Sixteenth myriad	Eighth octad	不可思議 (不可思议) (in China), 阿僧祇 (in Japan)	垓	Quadyllion
1068	Seventeenth myriad	Myriad eighth octad	無量大数 (in China)	萬垓
1072	Eighteenth myriad	Ninth octad	那由他, 那由多 (in Japan)	億垓
1080	Twentieth myriad	Tenth octad	不可思議 (in Japan)	兆垓
1088	Twenty-second myriad	Eleventh Octad	無量大数 (in Japan)	億兆垓
10128				秭	Quinyllion
10256				穰	Sexyllion
10512				溝 (沟)	Septyllion
101,024				澗 (涧)	Octyllion
102,048				正	Nonyllion
104,096				載 (载)	Decyllion
108,192				極 (极)	Undecyllion
1016,384					Duodecyllion
1032,768					Tredecyllion
1065,536					Quattuordecyllion
10131,072					Quindecyllion
10262,144					Sexdecyllion
10524,288					Septendecyllion
101,048,576					Octodecyllion
102,097,152					Novemdecyllion
104,194,304					Vigintyllion
10232					Trigintyllion
10242					Quadragintyllion
10252					Quinquagintyllion
10262					Sexagintyllion
10272					Septuagintyllion
10282					Octogintyllion
10292					Nonagintyllion
102102					Centyllion
1021,002					Millyllion
10210,002					Myryllion

Fractional numerals[edit]

This is a table of English names for non-negative rational numbers less than or equal to 1. It also lists alternative names, but there is no widespread convention for the names of extremely small positive numbers.

Keep in mind that rational numbers like 0.12 can be represented in infinitely many ways, e.g. zero-point-one-two (0.12), twelve percent (12%), three twenty-fifths (3/25), nine seventy-fifths (9/75), six fiftieths (6/50), twelve hundredths (12/100), twenty-four two-hundredths (24/200), etc.

Value	Fraction	Common names
1	1/1	One, Unity, Whole
0.9	9/10	Nine tenths, [zero] point nine
0.833333…	5/6	Five sixths
0.8	4/5	Four fifths, eight tenths, [zero] point eight
0.75	3/4	three quarters, three fourths, seventy-five hundredths, [zero] point seven five
0.7	7/10	Seven tenths, [zero] point seven
0.666666…	2/3	Two thirds
0.6	3/5	Three fifths, six tenths, [zero] point six
0.5	1/2	One half, five tenths, [zero] point five
0.4	2/5	Two fifths, four tenths, [zero] point four
0.333333…	1/3	One third
0.3	3/10	Three tenths, [zero] point three
0.25	1/4	One quarter, one fourth, twenty-five hundredths, [zero] point two five
0.2	1/5	One fifth, two tenths, [zero] point two
0.166666…	1/6	One sixth
0.142857142857…	1/7	One seventh
0.125	1/8	One eighth, one-hundred-[and-]twenty-five thousandths, [zero] point one two five
0.111111…	1/9	One ninth
0.1	1/10	One tenth, [zero] point one, One perdecime, one perdime
0.090909…	1/11	One eleventh
0.09	9/100	Nine hundredths, [zero] point zero nine
0.083333…	1/12	One twelfth
0.08	2/25	Two twenty-fifths, eight hundredths, [zero] point zero eight
0.076923076923…	1/13	One thirteenth
0.071428571428…	1/14	One fourteenth
0.066666…	1/15	One fifteenth
0.0625	1/16	One sixteenth, six-hundred-[and-]twenty-five ten-thousandths, [zero] point zero six two five
0.055555…	1/18	One eighteenth
0.05	1/20	One twentieth, five hundredths, [zero] point zero five
0.047619047619…	1/21	One twenty-first
0.045454545…	1/22	One twenty-second
0.043478260869565217391304347…	1/23	One twenty-third
0.041666…	1/24	One twenty-fourth
0.04	1/25	One twenty-fifth, four hundredths, [zero] point zero four
0.033333…	1/30	One thirtieth
0.03125	1/32	One thirty-second, thirty one-hundred [and] twenty five hundred-thousandths, [zero] point zero three one two five
0.03	3/100	Three hundredths, [zero] point zero three
0.025	1/40	One fortieth, twenty-five thousandths, [zero] point zero two five
0.02	1/50	One fiftieth, two hundredths, [zero] point zero two
0.016666…	1/60	One sixtieth
0.015625	1/64	One sixty-fourth, ten thousand fifty six-hundred [and] twenty-five millionths, [zero] point zero one five six two five
0.012345679012345679…	1/81	One eighty-first
0.010101…	1/99	One ninety-ninth
0.01	1/100	One hundredth, [zero] point zero one, One percent
0.009900990099…	1/101	One hundred-first
0.008264462809917355371900…	1/121	One over one hundred twenty-one
0.001	1/1000	One thousandth, [zero] point zero zero one, One permille
0.000277777…	1/3600	One thirty-six hundredth
0.0001	1/10000	One ten-thousandth, [zero] point zero zero zero one, One myriadth, one permyria, one permyriad, one basis point
0.00001	1/100000	One hundred-thousandth, [zero] point zero zero zero zero one, One lakhth, one perlakh
0.000001	1/1000000	One millionth, [zero] point zero zero zero zero zero one, One ppm
0.0000001	1/10000000	One ten-millionth, One crorth, one percrore
0.00000001	1/100000000	One hundred-millionth
0.000000001	1/1000000000	One billionth (in some dialects), One ppb
0.000000000001	1/1000000000000	One trillionth, One ppt
0	0/1	Zero, Nil

Other specific quantity terms[edit]

Various terms have arisen to describe commonly used measured quantities.

• Unit: 1
• Pair: 2 (the base of the binary numeral system)
• Leash: 3 (the base of the trinary numeral system)
• Dozen: 12 (the base of the duodecimal numeral system)
• Baker’s dozen: 13
• Score: 20 (the base of the vigesimal numeral system)
• Shock: 60 (the base of the sexagesimal numeral system)^[9]
• Gross: 144 (= 12²)
• Great gross: 1728 (= 12³)

Basis of counting system[edit]

Not all peoples count, at least not verbally. Specifically, there is not much need for counting among hunter-gatherers who do not engage in commerce. Many languages around the world have no numerals above two to four (if they’re actually numerals at all, and not some other part of speech)—or at least did not before contact with the colonial societies—and speakers of these languages may have no tradition of using the numerals they did have for counting. Indeed, several languages from the Amazon have been independently reported to have no specific number words other than ‘one’. These include Nadëb, pre-contact Mocoví and Pilagá, Culina and pre-contact Jarawara, Jabutí, Canela-Krahô, Botocudo (Krenák), Chiquitano, the Campa languages, Arabela, and Achuar.^[10] Some languages of Australia, such as Warlpiri, do not have words for quantities above two,^[11][12][13] and neither did many Khoisan languages at the time of European contact. Such languages do not have a word class of ‘numeral’.

Most languages with both numerals and counting use base 8, 10, 12, or 20. Base 10 appears to come from counting one’s fingers, base 20 from the fingers and toes, base 8 from counting the spaces between the fingers (attested in California), and base 12 from counting the knuckles (3 each for the four fingers).^[14]

No base[edit]

Many languages of Melanesia have (or once had) counting systems based on parts of the body which do not have a numeric base; there are (or were) no numerals, but rather nouns for relevant parts of the body—or simply pointing to the relevant spots—were used for quantities. For example, 1–4 may be the fingers, 5 ‘thumb’, 6 ‘wrist’, 7 ‘elbow’, 8 ‘shoulder’, etc., across the body and down the other arm, so that the opposite little finger represents a number between 17 (Torres Islands) to 23 (Eleman). For numbers beyond this, the torso, legs and toes may be used, or one might count back up the other arm and back down the first, depending on the people.

2: binary[edit]

Binary systems are base 2, using zeros and ones. With only two symbols binary is used for things with coding like computers.

3: ternary[edit]

Base 3 counting has practical usage in some analog logic, in baseball scoring and in self–similar mathematical structures.

4: quaternary[edit]

Some Austronesian and Melanesian ethnic groups, some Sulawesi and some Papua New Guineans, count with the base number four, using the term asu or aso, the word for dog, as the ubiquitous village dog has four legs.^[15] This is argued by anthropologists to be also based on early humans noting the human and animal shared body feature of two arms and two legs as well as its ease in simple arithmetic and counting. As an example of the system’s ease a realistic scenario could include a farmer returning from the market with fifty asu heads of pig (200), less 30 asu (120) of pig bartered for 10 asu (40) of goats noting his new pig count total as twenty asu: 80 pigs remaining. The system has a correlation to the dozen counting system and is still in common use in these areas as a natural and easy method of simple arithmetic.^[15][16]

5: quinary[edit]

Quinary systems are based on the number 5. It is almost certain the quinary system developed from counting by fingers (five fingers per hand).^[17] An example are the Epi languages of Vanuatu, where 5 is luna ‘hand’, 10 lua-luna ‘two hand’, 15 tolu-luna ‘three hand’, etc. 11 is then lua-luna tai ‘two-hand one’, and 17 tolu-luna lua ‘three-hand two’.

5 is a common auxiliary base, or sub-base, where 6 is ‘five and one’, 7 ‘five and two’, etc. Aztec was a vigesimal (base-20) system with sub-base 5.

6: senary[edit]

The Morehead-Maro languages of Southern New Guinea are examples of the rare base 6 system with monomorphemic words running up to 6⁶. Examples are Kanum and Kómnzo. The Sko languages on the North Coast of New Guinea follow a base-24 system with a sub-base of 6.

7: septenary[edit]

Septenary systems are very rare, as few natural objects consistently have seven distinctive features. Traditionally, it occurs in week-related timing. It has been suggested that the Palikúr language has a base-seven system, but this is dubious.^[18]

8: octal[edit]

Octal counting systems are based on the number 8. Examples can be found in the Yuki language of California and in the Pamean languages of Mexico, because the Yuki and Pame keep count by using the four spaces between their fingers rather than the fingers themselves.^[19]

9: nonary[edit]

It has been suggested that Nenets has a base-nine system.^[18]

10: decimal[edit]

A majority of traditional number systems are decimal. This dates back at least to the ancient Egyptians, who used a wholly decimal system. Anthropologists hypothesize this may be due to humans having five digits per hand, ten in total.^[17][20] There are many regional variations including:

• Western system: based on thousands, with variants (see English numerals)
• Indian system: crore, lakh (see Indian numbering system. Indian numerals)
• East Asian system: based on ten-thousands (see below)

12: duodecimal[edit]

Duodecimal systems are based on 12.

These include:

• Chepang language of Nepal,
• Mahl language of Minicoy Island in India
• Nigerian Middle Belt areas such as Janji, Kahugu and the Nimbia dialect of Gwandara.
• Melanesia^{[citation needed]}
• reconstructed proto-Benue–Congo

Duodecimal numeric systems have some practical advantages over decimal. It is much easier to divide the base digit twelve (which is a highly composite number) by many important divisors in market and trade settings, such as the numbers 2, 3, 4 and 6.

Because of several measurements based on twelve,^[21] many Western languages have words for base-twelve units such as dozen, gross and great gross, which allow for rudimentary duodecimal nomenclature, such as «two gross six dozen» for 360. Ancient Romans used a decimal system for integers, but switched to duodecimal for fractions, and correspondingly Latin developed a rich vocabulary for duodecimal-based fractions (see Roman numerals). A notable fictional duodecimal system was that of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Elvish languages, which used duodecimal as well as decimal.

16: hexadecimal[edit]

Hexadecimal systems are based on 16.

The traditional Chinese units of measurement were base-16. For example, one jīn (斤) in the old system equals sixteen taels. The suanpan (Chinese abacus) can be used to perform hexadecimal calculations such as additions and subtractions.^[22]

South Asian monetary systems were base-16. One rupee in Pakistan and India was divided into 16 annay. A single anna was subdivided into four paisa or twelve pies (thus there were 64 paise or 192 pies in a rupee). The anna was demonetised as a currency unit when India decimalised its currency in 1957, followed by Pakistan in 1961.

20: vigesimal[edit]

Vigesimal numbers use the number 20 as the base number for counting. Anthropologists are convinced the system originated from digit counting, as did bases five and ten, twenty being the number of human fingers and toes combined.^[17][23]
The system is in widespread use across the world. Some include the classical Mesoamerican cultures, still in use today in the modern indigenous languages of their descendants, namely the Nahuatl and Mayan languages (see Maya numerals). A modern national language which uses a full vigesimal system is Dzongkha in Bhutan.

Partial vigesimal systems are found in some European languages: Basque, Celtic languages, French (from Celtic), Danish, and Georgian. In these languages the systems are vigesimal up to 99, then decimal from 100 up. That is, 140 is ‘one hundred two score’, not *seven score, and there is no numeral for 400 (great score).

The term score originates from tally sticks, and is perhaps a remnant of Celtic vigesimal counting. It was widely used to learn the pre-decimal British currency in this idiom: «a dozen pence and a score of bob», referring to the 20 shillings in a pound. For Americans the term is most known from the opening of the Gettysburg Address: «Four score and seven years ago our fathers…».

24: quadrovigesimal[edit]

The Sko languages have a base-24 system with a sub-base of 6.

32: duotrigesimal[edit]

Ngiti has base 32.

60: sexagesimal[edit]

Ekari has a base-60 system. Sumeria had a base-60 system with a decimal sub-base (with alternating cycles of 10 and 6), which was the origin of the numbering of modern degrees, minutes, and seconds.

80: octogesimal[edit]

Supyire is said to have a base-80 system; it counts in twenties (with 5 and 10 as sub-bases) up to 80, then by eighties up to 400, and then by 400s (great scores).

799 [i.e. 400 + (4 x 80) + (3 x 20) + {10 + (5 + 4)}]’

See also[edit]

Numerals in various languages[edit]

A database Numeral Systems of the World’s Languages compiled by Eugene S.L. Chan of Hong Kong is hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. The database currently contains data for about 4000 languages.

• Proto-Indo-European numerals
  • English numerals
  • Indian numbering system
  • Polish numerals
  • Hindustani numerals
• Proto-Semitic numerals
  • Hebrew numerals
• Chinese numerals
  • Japanese numerals
  • Korean numerals
  • Vietnamese numerals
• Australian Aboriginal enumeration
• Balinese numerals
• Dzongkha numerals
• Finnish numerals
• Javanese numerals
• Yoruba numerals

[edit]

• Long and short scales
• Names of large numbers
• Numeral system
• Numeral prefix
• Names of small numbers

Notes[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• James R. Hurford (2010) [1975]. The Linguistic Theory of Numerals. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-13368-5.

In the Listening as well as the Reading sections of the IELTS test, you will notice that several questions instruct you to write the answers in a specific format.

WRITE ONE WORD ONLY

ONE WORD ONLY means your answer should only consist of a single word.

Question: How many fingers are there in one human hand?

Answer 1: five (one word answer) Correct

Answer 2: 5 (5 is a number, not a word) Incorrect

Answer 3: five fingers (two words) Incorrect

Answer 4: 5 fingers (one number and one word) Incorrect

ONE WORD AND/OR A NUMBER means that you can use a single word, a single number, or both as an answer.

Question: How many years make a decade?

Answer 1: ten (one word answer) Correct

Answer 2: 10 (one number) Correct

Answer 3: 10 years (one number and one word) Correct

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS means you can write either one word or two words as an answer but not more than that.

Question: In which direction does the sun rise?

Answer 1: east (you cannot write more than two words, but less than two words is allowed) Correct

Answer 2: the east (two words) Correct

Answer 3: in the east (three words) Incorrect

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER

NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A NUMBER means your answer can have up to two words or just one number or both.

Question: When is Valentine’s Day celebrated?

Answer: 14th of February (“14” is one number, “of” and “February” are two words) Correct

Answer tips

You can write numbers in either Arabic numerals (1, 2, 10, 85) or in words (one, two, ten, eighty-five).

Contracted words like doesn’t, it’s, can’t, Dr (as in doctor), tel no (as in telephone number), X-mas, etc are not accepted as answers.

Hyphenated words like high-tech, brother-in-law, close-up, long-term, etc are considered to be a single word.

In computing, a word is the natural unit of data used by a particular processor design. A word is a fixed-sized datum handled as a unit by the instruction set or the hardware of the processor. The number of bits or digits^[a] in a word (the word size, word width, or word length) is an important characteristic of any specific processor design or computer architecture.

The size of a word is reflected in many aspects of a computer’s structure and operation; the majority of the registers in a processor are usually word-sized and the largest datum that can be transferred to and from the working memory in a single operation is a word in many (not all) architectures. The largest possible address size, used to designate a location in memory, is typically a hardware word (here, «hardware word» means the full-sized natural word of the processor, as opposed to any other definition used).

Documentation for older computers with fixed word size commonly states memory sizes in words rather than bytes or characters. The documentation sometimes uses metric prefixes correctly, sometimes with rounding, e.g., 65 kilowords (KW) meaning for 65536 words, and sometimes uses them incorrectly, with kilowords (KW) meaning 1024 words (2¹⁰) and megawords (MW) meaning 1,048,576 words (2²⁰). With standardization on 8-bit bytes and byte addressability, stating memory sizes in bytes, kilobytes, and megabytes with powers of 1024 rather than 1000 has become the norm, although there is some use of the IEC binary prefixes.

Several of the earliest computers (and a few modern as well) use binary-coded decimal rather than plain binary, typically having a word size of 10 or 12 decimal digits, and some early decimal computers have no fixed word length at all. Early binary systems tended to use word lengths that were some multiple of 6-bits, with the 36-bit word being especially common on mainframe computers. The introduction of ASCII led to the move to systems with word lengths that were a multiple of 8-bits, with 16-bit machines being popular in the 1970s before the move to modern processors with 32 or 64 bits.^[1] Special-purpose designs like digital signal processors, may have any word length from 4 to 80 bits.^[1]

The size of a word can sometimes differ from the expected due to backward compatibility with earlier computers. If multiple compatible variations or a family of processors share a common architecture and instruction set but differ in their word sizes, their documentation and software may become notationally complex to accommodate the difference (see Size families below).

Uses of wordsEdit

Depending on how a computer is organized, word-size units may be used for:

Fixed-point numbers

Holders for fixed point, usually integer, numerical values may be available in one or in several different sizes, but one of the sizes available will almost always be the word. The other sizes, if any, are likely to be multiples or fractions of the word size. The smaller sizes are normally used only for efficient use of memory; when loaded into the processor, their values usually go into a larger, word sized holder.

Floating-point numbers

Holders for floating-point numerical values are typically either a word or a multiple of a word.

Addresses

Holders for memory addresses must be of a size capable of expressing the needed range of values but not be excessively large, so often the size used is the word though it can also be a multiple or fraction of the word size.

Registers

Processor registers are designed with a size appropriate for the type of data they hold, e.g. integers, floating-point numbers, or addresses. Many computer architectures use general-purpose registers that are capable of storing data in multiple representations.

Memory–processor transfer

When the processor reads from the memory subsystem into a register or writes a register’s value to memory, the amount of data transferred is often a word. Historically, this amount of bits which could be transferred in one cycle was also called a catena in some environments (such as the Bull GAMMA 60 [fr]).^[2][3] In simple memory subsystems, the word is transferred over the memory data bus, which typically has a width of a word or half-word. In memory subsystems that use caches, the word-sized transfer is the one between the processor and the first level of cache; at lower levels of the memory hierarchy larger transfers (which are a multiple of the word size) are normally used.

Unit of address resolution

In a given architecture, successive address values designate successive units of memory; this unit is the unit of address resolution. In most computers, the unit is either a character (e.g. a byte) or a word. (A few computers have used bit resolution.) If the unit is a word, then a larger amount of memory can be accessed using an address of a given size at the cost of added complexity to access individual characters. On the other hand, if the unit is a byte, then individual characters can be addressed (i.e. selected during the memory operation).

Instructions

Machine instructions are normally the size of the architecture’s word, such as in RISC architectures, or a multiple of the «char» size that is a fraction of it. This is a natural choice since instructions and data usually share the same memory subsystem. In Harvard architectures the word sizes of instructions and data need not be related, as instructions and data are stored in different memories; for example, the processor in the 1ESS electronic telephone switch has 37-bit instructions and 23-bit data words.

Word size choiceEdit

When a computer architecture is designed, the choice of a word size is of substantial importance. There are design considerations which encourage particular bit-group sizes for particular uses (e.g. for addresses), and these considerations point to different sizes for different uses. However, considerations of economy in design strongly push for one size, or a very few sizes related by multiples or fractions (submultiples) to a primary size. That preferred size becomes the word size of the architecture.

Character size was in the past (pre-variable-sized character encoding) one of the influences on unit of address resolution and the choice of word size. Before the mid-1960s, characters were most often stored in six bits; this allowed no more than 64 characters, so the alphabet was limited to upper case. Since it is efficient in time and space to have the word size be a multiple of the character size, word sizes in this period were usually multiples of 6 bits (in binary machines). A common choice then was the 36-bit word, which is also a good size for the numeric properties of a floating point format.

After the introduction of the IBM System/360 design, which uses eight-bit characters and supports lower-case letters, the standard size of a character (or more accurately, a byte) becomes eight bits. Word sizes thereafter are naturally multiples of eight bits, with 16, 32, and 64 bits being commonly used.

Variable-word architecturesEdit

Early machine designs included some that used what is often termed a variable word length. In this type of organization, an operand has no fixed length. Depending on the machine and the instruction, the length might be denoted by a count field, by a delimiting character, or by an additional bit called, e.g., flag, or word mark. Such machines often use binary-coded decimal in 4-bit digits, or in 6-bit characters, for numbers. This class of machines includes the IBM 702, IBM 705, IBM 7080, IBM 7010, UNIVAC 1050, IBM 1401, IBM 1620, and RCA 301.

Most of these machines work on one unit of memory at a time and since each instruction or datum is several units long, each instruction takes several cycles just to access memory. These machines are often quite slow because of this. For example, instruction fetches on an IBM 1620 Model I take 8 cycles (160 μs) just to read the 12 digits of the instruction (the Model II reduced this to 6 cycles, or 4 cycles if the instruction did not need both address fields). Instruction execution takes a variable number of cycles, depending on the size of the operands.

Word, bit and byte addressingEdit

The memory model of an architecture is strongly influenced by the word size. In particular, the resolution of a memory address, that is, the smallest unit that can be designated by an address, has often been chosen to be the word. In this approach, the word-addressable machine approach, address values which differ by one designate adjacent memory words. This is natural in machines which deal almost always in word (or multiple-word) units, and has the advantage of allowing instructions to use minimally sized fields to contain addresses, which can permit a smaller instruction size or a larger variety of instructions.

When byte processing is to be a significant part of the workload, it is usually more advantageous to use the byte, rather than the word, as the unit of address resolution. Address values which differ by one designate adjacent bytes in memory. This allows an arbitrary character within a character string to be addressed straightforwardly. A word can still be addressed, but the address to be used requires a few more bits than the word-resolution alternative. The word size needs to be an integer multiple of the character size in this organization. This addressing approach was used in the IBM 360, and has been the most common approach in machines designed since then.

When the workload involves processing fields of different sizes, it can be advantageous to address to the bit. Machines with bit addressing may have some instructions that use a programmer-defined byte size and other instructions that operate on fixed data sizes. As an example, on the IBM 7030^[4] («Stretch»), a floating point instruction can only address words while an integer arithmetic instruction can specify a field length of 1-64 bits, a byte size of 1-8 bits and an accumulator offset of 0-127 bits.

In a byte-addressable machine with storage-to-storage (SS) instructions, there are typically move instructions to copy one or multiple bytes from one arbitrary location to another. In a byte-oriented (byte-addressable) machine without SS instructions, moving a single byte from one arbitrary location to another is typically:

1. LOAD the source byte
2. STORE the result back in the target byte

Individual bytes can be accessed on a word-oriented machine in one of two ways. Bytes can be manipulated by a combination of shift and mask operations in registers. Moving a single byte from one arbitrary location to another may require the equivalent of the following:

1. LOAD the word containing the source byte
2. SHIFT the source word to align the desired byte to the correct position in the target word
3. AND the source word with a mask to zero out all but the desired bits
4. LOAD the word containing the target byte
5. AND the target word with a mask to zero out the target byte
6. OR the registers containing the source and target words to insert the source byte
7. STORE the result back in the target location

Alternatively many word-oriented machines implement byte operations with instructions using special byte pointers in registers or memory. For example, the PDP-10 byte pointer contained the size of the byte in bits (allowing different-sized bytes to be accessed), the bit position of the byte within the word, and the word address of the data. Instructions could automatically adjust the pointer to the next byte on, for example, load and deposit (store) operations.

Powers of twoEdit

Different amounts of memory are used to store data values with different degrees of precision. The commonly used sizes are usually a power of two multiple of the unit of address resolution (byte or word). Converting the index of an item in an array into the memory address offset of the item then requires only a shift operation rather than a multiplication. In some cases this relationship can also avoid the use of division operations. As a result, most modern computer designs have word sizes (and other operand sizes) that are a power of two times the size of a byte.

Size familiesEdit

As computer designs have grown more complex, the central importance of a single word size to an architecture has decreased. Although more capable hardware can use a wider variety of sizes of data, market forces exert pressure to maintain backward compatibility while extending processor capability. As a result, what might have been the central word size in a fresh design has to coexist as an alternative size to the original word size in a backward compatible design. The original word size remains available in future designs, forming the basis of a size family.

In the mid-1970s, DEC designed the VAX to be a 32-bit successor of the 16-bit PDP-11. They used word for a 16-bit quantity, while longword referred to a 32-bit quantity; this terminology is the same as the terminology used for the PDP-11. This was in contrast to earlier machines, where the natural unit of addressing memory would be called a word, while a quantity that is one half a word would be called a halfword. In fitting with this scheme, a VAX quadword is 64 bits. They continued this 16-bit word/32-bit longword/64-bit quadword terminology with the 64-bit Alpha.

Another example is the x86 family, of which processors of three different word lengths (16-bit, later 32- and 64-bit) have been released, while word continues to designate a 16-bit quantity. As software is routinely ported from one word-length to the next, some APIs and documentation define or refer to an older (and thus shorter) word-length than the full word length on the CPU that software may be compiled for. Also, similar to how bytes are used for small numbers in many programs, a shorter word (16 or 32 bits) may be used in contexts where the range of a wider word is not needed (especially where this can save considerable stack space or cache memory space). For example, Microsoft’s Windows API maintains the programming language definition of WORD as 16 bits, despite the fact that the API may be used on a 32- or 64-bit x86 processor, where the standard word size would be 32 or 64 bits, respectively. Data structures containing such different sized words refer to them as:

• WORD (16 bits/2 bytes)
• DWORD (32 bits/4 bytes)
• QWORD (64 bits/8 bytes)

A similar phenomenon has developed in Intel’s x86 assembly language – because of the support for various sizes (and backward compatibility) in the instruction set, some instruction mnemonics carry «d» or «q» identifiers denoting «double-«, «quad-» or «double-quad-«, which are in terms of the architecture’s original 16-bit word size.

An example with a different word size is the IBM System/360 family. In the System/360 architecture, System/370 architecture and System/390 architecture, there are 8-bit bytes, 16-bit halfwords, 32-bit words and 64-bit doublewords. The z/Architecture, which is the 64-bit member of that architecture family, continues to refer to 16-bit halfwords, 32-bit words, and 64-bit doublewords, and additionally features 128-bit quadwords.

In general, new processors must use the same data word lengths and virtual address widths as an older processor to have binary compatibility with that older processor.

Often carefully written source code – written with source-code compatibility and software portability in mind – can be recompiled to run on a variety of processors, even ones with different data word lengths or different address widths or both.

Table of word sizesEdit

key: bit: bits, c: characters, d: decimal digits, w: word size of architecture, n: variable size, wm: Word mark
Year	Computer architecture	Word size w	Integer sizes	Floating­point sizes	Instruction sizes	Unit of address resolution	Char size
1837	Babbage Analytical engine	50 d	w	—	Five different cards were used for different functions, exact size of cards not known.	w	—
1941	Zuse Z3	22 bit	—	w	8 bit	w	—
1942	ABC	50 bit	w	—	—	—	—
1944	Harvard Mark I	23 d	w	—	24 bit	—	—
1946 (1948) {1953}	ENIAC (w/Panel #16[5]) {w/Panel #26[6]}	10 d	w, 2w (w) {w}	—	— (2 d, 4 d, 6 d, 8 d) {2 d, 4 d, 6 d, 8 d}	— — {w}	—
1948	Manchester Baby	32 bit	w	—	w	w	—
1951	UNIVAC I	12 d	w	—	1⁄2w	w	1 d
1952	IAS machine	40 bit	w	—	1⁄2w	w	5 bit
1952	Fast Universal Digital Computer M-2	34 bit	w?	w	34 bit = 4-bit opcode plus 3×10 bit address	10 bit	—
1952	IBM 701	36 bit	1⁄2w, w	—	1⁄2w	1⁄2w, w	6 bit
1952	UNIVAC 60	n d	1 d, … 10 d	—	—	—	2 d, 3 d
1952	ARRA I	30 bit	w	—	w	w	5 bit
1953	IBM 702	n c	0 c, … 511 c	—	5 c	c	6 bit
1953	UNIVAC 120	n d	1 d, … 10 d	—	—	—	2 d, 3 d
1953	ARRA II	30 bit	w	2w	1⁄2w	w	5 bit
1954 (1955)	IBM 650 (w/IBM 653)	10 d	w	— (w)	w	w	2 d
1954	IBM 704	36 bit	w	w	w	w	6 bit
1954	IBM 705	n c	0 c, … 255 c	—	5 c	c	6 bit
1954	IBM NORC	16 d	w	w, 2w	w	w	—
1956	IBM 305	n d	1 d, … 100 d	—	10 d	d	1 d
1956	ARMAC	34 bit	w	w	1⁄2w	w	5 bit, 6 bit
1956	LGP-30	31 bit	w	—	16 bit	w	6 bit
1957	Autonetics Recomp I	40 bit	w, 79 bit, 8 d, 15 d	—	1⁄2w	1⁄2w, w	5 bit
1958	UNIVAC II	12 d	w	—	1⁄2w	w	1 d
1958	SAGE	32 bit	1⁄2w	—	w	w	6 bit
1958	Autonetics Recomp II	40 bit	w, 79 bit, 8 d, 15 d	2w	1⁄2w	1⁄2w, w	5 bit
1958	Setun	6 trit (~9.5 bits)[b]	up to 6 tryte		up to 3 trytes		4 trit?
1958	Electrologica X1	27 bit	w	2w	w	w	5 bit, 6 bit
1959	IBM 1401	n c	1 c, …	—	1 c, 2 c, 4 c, 5 c, 7 c, 8 c	c	6 bit + wm
1959 (TBD)	IBM 1620	n d	2 d, …	— (4 d, … 102 d)	12 d	d	2 d
1960	LARC	12 d	w, 2w	w, 2w	w	w	2 d
1960	CDC 1604	48 bit	w	w	1⁄2w	w	6 bit
1960	IBM 1410	n c	1 c, …	—	1 c, 2 c, 6 c, 7 c, 11 c, 12 c	c	6 bit + wm
1960	IBM 7070	10 d[c]	w, 1-9 d	w	w	w, d	2 d
1960	PDP-1	18 bit	w	—	w	w	6 bit
1960	Elliott 803	39 bit
1961	IBM 7030 (Stretch)	64 bit	1 bit, … 64 bit, 1 d, … 16 d	w	1⁄2w, w	bit (integer), 1⁄2w (branch), w (float)	1 bit, … 8 bit
1961	IBM 7080	n c	0 c, … 255 c	—	5 c	c	6 bit
1962	GE-6xx	36 bit	w, 2 w	w, 2 w, 80 bit	w	w	6 bit, 9 bit
1962	UNIVAC III	25 bit	w, 2w, 3w, 4w, 6 d, 12 d	—	w	w	6 bit
1962	Autonetics D-17B Minuteman I Guidance Computer	27 bit	11 bit, 24 bit	—	24 bit	w	—
1962	UNIVAC 1107	36 bit	1⁄6w, 1⁄3w, 1⁄2w, w	w	w	w	6 bit
1962	IBM 7010	n c	1 c, …	—	1 c, 2 c, 6 c, 7 c, 11 c, 12 c	c	6 b + wm
1962	IBM 7094	36 bit	w	w, 2w	w	w	6 bit
1962	SDS 9 Series	24 bit	w	2w	w	w
1963 (1966)	Apollo Guidance Computer	15 bit	w	—	w, 2w	w	—
1963	Saturn Launch Vehicle Digital Computer	26 bit	w	—	13 bit	w	—
1964/1966	PDP-6/PDP-10	36 bit	w	w, 2 w	w	w	6 bit 7 bit (typical) 9 bit
1964	Titan	48 bit	w	w	w	w	w
1964	CDC 6600	60 bit	w	w	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w	w	6 bit
1964	Autonetics D-37C Minuteman II Guidance Computer	27 bit	11 bit, 24 bit	—	24 bit	w	4 bit, 5 bit
1965	Gemini Guidance Computer	39 bit	26 bit	—	13 bit	13 bit, 26	—bit
1965	IBM 1130	16 bit	w, 2w	2w, 3w	w, 2w	w	8 bit
1965	IBM System/360	32 bit	1⁄2w, w, 1 d, … 16 d	w, 2w	1⁄2w, w, 11⁄2w	8 bit	8 bit
1965	UNIVAC 1108	36 bit	1⁄6w, 1⁄4w, 1⁄3w, 1⁄2w, w, 2w	w, 2w	w	w	6 bit, 9 bit
1965	PDP-8	12 bit	w	—	w	w	8 bit
1965	Electrologica X8	27 bit	w	2w	w	w	6 bit, 7 bit
1966	SDS Sigma 7	32 bit	1⁄2w, w	w, 2w	w	8 bit	8 bit
1969	Four-Phase Systems AL1	8 bit	w	—	?	?	?
1970	MP944	20 bit	w	—	?	?	?
1970	PDP-11	16 bit	w	2w, 4w	w, 2w, 3w	8 bit	8 bit
1971	CDC STAR-100	64 bit	1⁄2w, w	1⁄2w, w	1⁄2w, w	bit	8 bit
1971	TMS1802NC	4 bit	w	—	?	?	—
1971	Intel 4004	4 bit	w, d	—	2w, 4w	w	—
1972	Intel 8008	8 bit	w, 2 d	—	w, 2w, 3w	w	8 bit
1972	Calcomp 900	9 bit	w	—	w, 2w	w	8 bit
1974	Intel 8080	8 bit	w, 2w, 2 d	—	w, 2w, 3w	w	8 bit
1975	ILLIAC IV	64 bit	w	w, 1⁄2w	w	w	—
1975	Motorola 6800	8 bit	w, 2 d	—	w, 2w, 3w	w	8 bit
1975	MOS Tech. 6501 MOS Tech. 6502	8 bit	w, 2 d	—	w, 2w, 3w	w	8 bit
1976	Cray-1	64 bit	24 bit, w	w	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w	w	8 bit
1976	Zilog Z80	8 bit	w, 2w, 2 d	—	w, 2w, 3w, 4w, 5w	w	8 bit
1978 (1980)	16-bit x86 (Intel 8086) (w/floating point: Intel 8087)	16 bit	1⁄2w, w, 2 d	— (2w, 4w, 5w, 17 d)	1⁄2w, w, … 7w	8 bit	8 bit
1978	VAX	32 bit	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w, 1 d, … 31 d, 1 bit, … 32 bit	w, 2w	1⁄4w, … 141⁄4w	8 bit	8 bit
1979 (1984)	Motorola 68000 series (w/floating point)	32 bit	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w, 2 d	— (w, 2w, 21⁄2w)	1⁄2w, w, … 71⁄2w	8 bit	8 bit
1985	IA-32 (Intel 80386) (w/floating point)	32 bit	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w	— (w, 2w, 80 bit)	8 bit, … 120 bit 1⁄4w … 33⁄4w	8 bit	8 bit
1985	ARMv1	32 bit	1⁄4w, w	—	w	8 bit	8 bit
1985	MIPS I	32 bit	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w	w, 2w	w	8 bit	8 bit
1991	Cray C90	64 bit	32 bit, w	w	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, 48 bit	w	8 bit
1992	Alpha	64 bit	8 bit, 1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w	1⁄2w, w	1⁄2w	8 bit	8 bit
1992	PowerPC	32 bit	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w	w, 2w	w	8 bit	8 bit
1996	ARMv4 (w/Thumb)	32 bit	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w	—	w (1⁄2w, w)	8 bit	8 bit
2000	IBM z/Architecture (w/vector facility)	64 bit	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w 1 d, … 31 d	1⁄2w, w, 2w	1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, 3⁄4w	8 bit	8 bit, UTF-16, UTF-32
2001	IA-64	64 bit	8 bit, 1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w	1⁄2w, w	41 bit (in 128-bit bundles)[7]	8 bit	8 bit
2001	ARMv6 (w/VFP)	32 bit	8 bit, 1⁄2w, w	— (w, 2w)	1⁄2w, w	8 bit	8 bit
2003	x86-64	64 bit	8 bit, 1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w	1⁄2w, w, 80 bit	8 bit, … 120 bit	8 bit	8 bit
2013	ARMv8-A and ARMv9-A	64 bit	8 bit, 1⁄4w, 1⁄2w, w	1⁄2w, w	1⁄2w	8 bit	8 bit
Year	Computer architecture	Word size w	Integer sizes	Floating­point sizes	Instruction sizes	Unit of address resolution	Char size
key: bit: bits, d: decimal digits, w: word size of architecture, n: variable size

^[8][9]

See alsoEdit

• Integer (computer science)

NotesEdit

ReferencesEdit