megabyte

See also: Megabyte and mégabyte

English

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂s

Proto-Hellenic *mégas

Ancient Greek μέγᾰς (mégăs)der.

English mega-

Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd-

Proto-Indo-European *-t

Proto-Indo-European *bʰéydt

Proto-Germanic *bītaną

Proto-West Germanic *bītan

Old English bītan

Middle English biten

English bite

English byte

English megabyte

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.

   • 2002 April 30, Matt Hamblen, “Next generation wireless: Will users pay?”, in CNN‎^[1]:

     AT&T Wireless Services Inc. in Redmond, Washington, is currently offering $1 per megabyte as its cheapest rate for General Packet Radio Service wireless service, which can provide 20K to 40K bit/sec. throughput. But that price is only if a subscriber buys the most megabytes per month now being offered: 200MB of data for $199 a month.

   • 2009 May 14, Marguerite Reardon, “Verizon Netbook to hit stores this weekend”, in CNN‎^[2]:

     The overage charge on this plan has been reduced to 10 cents per megabyte over the limit. Previously, the company charged 25 cents per megabyte for overages.

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

Derived terms

• submegabyte

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

  Latin: 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

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *méǵh₂s

Proto-Hellenic *mégas

Ancient Greek μέγᾰς (mégăs)der.

English mega-

Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyd-

Proto-Indo-European *-t

Proto-Indo-European *bʰéydt

Proto-Germanic *bītaną

Proto-West Germanic *bītan

Old English bītan

Middle English biten

English bite

English byte

English megabyteubor.

Portuguese megabyte

Unadapted borrowing from English megabyte.

Pronunciation

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

 

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

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

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

Further reading

• “megabyte”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “megabyte”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Spanish

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English megabyte, equivalent to mega- +‎ byte.

Pronunciation

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

Noun

megabyte m (plural megabytes)

1. (computing) 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 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025