Coined at IBM in 1956, a deliberate misspelling of 'bite' to avoid confusion with 'bit' — a mouthful of data.
A group of binary digits (typically eight) operated on as a unit in a computer.
A coined term from the early computing era, first attested in 1956 in IBM documentation, credited to Werner Buchholz during the design of the IBM Stretch computer. The word was deliberately invented by altering "bite" (a small amount, a morsel) to avoid confusion with "bit" (binary digit) in technical writing. The spelling change from "i" to "y" was intentional — a typographical safeguard against the disastrous misprint of "bit" for "bite" in engineering specifications. The underlying
'Byte' is a deliberate misspelling of 'bite' — IBM engineer Werner Buchholz changed the vowel to prevent confusion with 'bit' in technical documents. And 'bit' (binary digit) is itself a pun: a bit is both a 'binary digit' and a 'small bite.' So a byte is 'a mouthful of bits' — computing terminology built entirely on eating metaphors.