megabyte

See also: Megabyte and mégabyte

English

Etymology

From mega- +‎ byte.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɛɡəˌbaɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Noun

megabyte (plural megabytes)

1. (computing, formal) One million (10⁶, or 1,000,000) bytes or 1,000 kilobytes.
   • 1964, System/360 System Summary, IBM, page 27:

     The IBM 2301 Drum Storage (Figure 20) provides random access storage of approximately 4 million bytes at a data rate of 1.2 megabytes per second.

   • 1973, Reference Manual for IBM 3340/3344 Disk Storage, IBM, page 3:

     This 70-megabyte [69,889,536 bytes] data module contains fixed heads in addition to the normal access heads.

2. (computing, informal) A mebibyte.
   • 2003, Michael Meyers, Managing and Troubleshooting PCs, page 933:

     One megabyte is 1,048,576 bytes. One megahertz, however is a million Hertz.

   • 2004, Kerry Cox, Christopher Gerg, Managing Security with Snort and IDS Tools, page 92:

     Defaults to 2 megabytes (2,097,152 bytes).

   • 2006, Eriq Oliver Neale, Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 Unleashed, page 290:

     By default, each log file [...] is exactly 5 megabytes (5,242,880 bytes) in size.

Synonyms

• MB, ㎆

Coordinate terms

• Previous: kilobyte
• Next: gigabyte

Related terms

• mebibit
• mebibyte
• megabit

Translations

about a million bytes

• Arabic: مِيغَابَايْت m (miḡabayt)
• Bengali: মেগাবাইট (bn) (megabaiṭ)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: (formal) 兆字節 / 兆字节 (zh) (zhàozìjié), (common abbreviation, pronounced like English) MG

• Czech: megabyte (cs) m, megabajt (cs) m
• Esperanto: megabitoko, megabajto
• Finnish: megatavu (fi)
• French: mégaoctet (fr) m, mégabyte (fr) m
• Georgian: მეგაბაიტი (megabaiṭi)
• German: Megabyte (de) n
• Greek: μεγκαμπάιτ n (megkampáit), μεγαδυφιοσυλλαβή n (megadyfiosyllaví)
• Hebrew: מגה־בית
• Hungarian: megabyte (hu)
• Icelandic: megabæti
• Japanese: メガバイト (ja) (megabaito)
• Korean: 메가바이트 (megabaiteu)
• Macedonian: мегабајт m (megabajt)
• Navajo: tááłtsohʼííłké
• Polish: megabajt (pl) m
• Portuguese: megabyte (pt) m
• Romanian: megabyte (ro) m, megaoctet m
• Russian: мегаба́йт (ru) m (megabájt)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: ме̏габајт m

  Roman: mȅgabajt (sh) m

• Spanish: megabyte (es)
• Swahili: megabaiti
• Thai: เมกะไบต์ (th)
• Tibetan: ཡིག་ཚིགས་ས་ཡ (yig tshigs sa ya)
• Turkish: megabayt
• Ukrainian: мегаба́йт m (mehabájt)
• Uyghur: مېگابايت (mëgabayt)
• Yiddish: מעגאַבײַט (megabayt)

Czech

Alternative forms

• megabajt

Etymology

From mega- +‎ byte.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈmɛɡabajt]

Noun

megabyte m inan

1. megabyte

Declension

Declension of megabyte (hard masculine inanimate foreign)

	singular	plural
nominative	megabyte	megabyty
genitive	megabytu	megabytů
dative	megabytu	megabytům
accusative	megabyte	megabyty
vocative	megabyte	megabyty
locative	megabytu	megabytech
instrumental	megabytem	megabyty

Further reading

• “megabyte”, in Kartotéka Novočeského lexikálního archivu (in Czech)
• “megabyte”, in Akademický slovník cizích slov at prirucka.ujc.cas.cz [Academic dictionary of foreign words] (in Czech), 1995

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English megabyte. By surface analysis, mega- +‎ byte.

Noun

megabyte m (invariable)

1. (computing) megabyte

Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English megabyte.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaj.t͡ʃi/ [ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaɪ̯.t͡ʃi], /ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbajt͡ʃ/ [ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaɪ̯t͡ʃ]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaj.t͡ʃi/ [ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaɪ̯.t͡ʃi], /ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbajt͡ʃ/ [ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaɪ̯t͡ʃ]
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbajt͡ʃ/ [ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaɪ̯t͡ʃ], /ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaj.t͡ʃi/ [ˌmɛ.ɡaˈbaɪ̯.t͡ʃi]

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˌmɛ.ɡɐˈbajt/ [ˌmɛ.ɣɐˈβajt]

Noun

megabyte m (plural megabytes)

1. (computing) megabyte (one million bytes)

Synonyms

• Abbreviations: MB, mega

Coordinate terms

• Multiples of the byte: kilobyte, megabyte, gigabyte, terabyte, petabyte, exabyte, zettabyte, yottabyte

Related terms

• megabit
• mebibyte

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English megabyte.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /meɡaˈbait/ [me.ɣ̞aˈβ̞ai̯t̪]
• Rhymes: -ait

Noun

megabyte m (plural megabytes)

1. megabyte

Usage notes

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.

Further reading

• “megabyte”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10