nybble

/nibl/ , nibble , n. [from v. nibble by analogy with bite  byte ] Four bits;
one hex digit; a half-byte. Though byte is now techspeak, this useful
relative is still jargon. Compare byte ; see also bit. The more mundane
spelling nibble is also commonly used. Apparently the nybble spelling is
uncommon in Commonwealth Hackish, as British orthography would suggest the
pronunciation /ni:bl/. Following bit , byte and nybble there have been quite
a few analogical attempts to construct unambiguous terms for bit blocks of
other sizes. All of these are strictly jargon, not techspeak, and not very
common jargon at that (most hackers would recognize them in context but not
use them spontaneously). We collect them here for reference together with
the ambiguous techspeak terms word , half-word , double word , and quad or
quad word ; some (indicated) have substantial information separate entries.
2 bits: crumb , quad , quarter , tayste, tydbit, morsel 4 bits: nybble 5
bits: nickle 10 bits: deckle 16 bits: playte, chawmp (on a 32-bit machine),
word (on a 16-bit machine), half-word (on a 32-bit machine). 18 bits: chawmp
(on a 36-bit machine), half-word (on a 36-bit machine) 32 bits: dynner,
gawble (on a 32-bit machine), word (on a 32-bit machine), longword (on a
16-bit machine). 36 bits: word (on a 36-bit machine) 48 bits: gawble (under
circumstances that remain obscure) 64 bits: double word (on a 32-bit
machine) quad (on a 16-bit machine) 128 bits: quad (on a 32-bit machine) The
fundamental motivation for most of these jargon terms (aside from the normal
hackerly enjoyment of punning wordplay) is the extreme ambiguity of the term
word and its derivatives.

