megabyte

noun

mega·​byte ˈme-gə-ˌbīt How to pronounce megabyte (audio)
: 1024 kilobytes or 1,048,576 bytes
also : one million bytes

Examples of megabyte in a Sentence

The CD has a storage capacity of 800 megabytes.
Recent Examples on the Web Humans acquire language using only around 1.5 megabytes of data (less than a 1980s floppy disk). Craig S. Smith, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2024 And the optical nerve is about 20 megabytes per second. TIME, 13 Feb. 2024 In 1995 Niklaus Wirth lamented that software had grown to megabytes in size. IEEE Spectrum, 6 Feb. 2024 The 68000 was a 16/32-bit chip and used a 24-bit address bus, giving it a maximum of 16 megabytes of memory. Jeremy Reimer, Ars Technica, 19 Jan. 2023 An average photo takes up five megabytes, according to Samsung. Brian X. Chen, New York Times, 31 Jan. 2024 But for the Portable, Apple stuck with a configuration very similar to the Mac Plus: a 16 MHz 68000 CPU and 1 megabyte of RAM. Benj Edwards, Ars Technica, 24 Jan. 2024 The movie opens long after humanity has vacated Earth, and all that’s left are two AIs: a buoy, named Me, created to catalog the ocean, and a satellite, named Iam (played by Steven Yeun), loaded with every last megabyte of recorded history. Adam B. Vary, Variety, 11 Jan. 2024 Its file bundle is about half a megabyte, adding to the data transfer load and using a high proportion of the browser’s resources for processing. IEEE Spectrum, 12 Dec. 2023

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'megabyte.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

from the fact that 1,048,576 (220) is the power of 2 closest to one million

First Known Use

1965, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of megabyte was in 1965

Dictionary Entries Near megabyte

Cite this Entry

“Megabyte.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/megabyte. Accessed 19 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

megabyte

noun
mega·​byte ˈmeg-ə-ˌbīt How to pronounce megabyte (audio)
: 1,048,576 bytes
also : one million bytes

More from Merriam-Webster on megabyte

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