Vol. 10 · Portmanteaus ·Mid-century: TV and science ·1948
Bit
binary digit
- Meaning
- The fundamental unit of digital information — a 0 or a 1.
- Source words
- binary + digit
- Coined by
- John W. Tukey
- Year
- 1948
Background
The statistician Tukey proposed "bit" in a memo at Bell Labs; Claude Shannon adopted it in his 1948 information theory paper. The portmanteau won out over rivals "binit" and "bigit."
Mid-century: TV and science
Two engines dominated: television (sitcom, televangelist) and post-war big science (pulsar, transistor). Many mid-century coinages came from scientific style sheets and industry journals.
Two words, one coinage.
Browse every portmanteau on the shelf — or cross over to the loanwords atlas.