gigabit

IPA/ˈɡɪɡəbɪt/
IPA/ˈɡɪɡəbɪt/

gigabit — noun

  • gigabitsingular
  • gigabitsplural

1. a unit of digital information equal to one billion bits (1,000,000,000 bits, or

1.nounB2
Definition

a unit of digital information equal to one billion bits (1,000,000,000 bits, or about 125 megabytes), most often used to describe internet connection speeds or the capacity of a computer network.

Example

Ayana signed up for a fibre-optic plan that offers one gigabit per second download speeds.

collocation: gigabit per second

The office IT team installed a ten-gigabit switch so every desk could stream video smoothly.

combining form: ten-gigabit

Common collocations
  • gigabit per second
  • gigabit ethernet
  • gigabit network
  • gigabit connection
  • gigabit switch
  • gigabit speed
Synonyms
  • Gb

    standard abbreviation; always lowercase 'b' for bits (uppercase 'B' means bytes)

Usage Note

Gigabit is commonly seen in compound forms such as 'gigabit per second' (abbreviated Gbps) and 'gigabit ethernet'. Do not confuse with 'gigabyte' (GB), which is eight times larger (1 GB = 8 Gb).

Common Mistakes

My internet speed is 100 gigabytes per second.
My internet speed is 100 gigabits per second.
A gigabyte (GB) is 8 times larger than a gigabit (Gb); internet speeds are usually measured in bits, not bytes.

Word family

  • gigabit per second
    noun phraseB2
  • gigabit ethernet
    noun phraseB2

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Gigabit (Gb), gigabyte (GB), and gibibit (Gib) all measure digital data but differ in scale and use. A gigabit equals 10⁹ bits and is standard for network speeds — ISPs advertise '1 Gbps' plans. A gigabyte equals 10⁹ bytes (8 Gb) and is used for file sizes and storage: a 4 GB movie. A gibibit equals 2³⁰ bits (~1.074 Gb) and belongs to the binary-prefix system (IEC 80000-13) used by operating systems. Learners should remember: lowercase 'b' = bits (network speed), uppercase 'B' = bytes (file size). Mixing them up leads to eight-fold errors — a claimed '100 MB/s' download is actually 800 Mb/s.

gigabit ↗gigabytegibibit

Common collocations

Nouns

Phrases

  • gigabit per second (Gbps)
  • gigabit ethernet
  • gigabit-capable

Prepositions

Etymology

GreekEnglish

Formed from the prefix 'giga-' (from Greek γίγας, gigas, meaning 'giant') and 'bit' (a blend of 'binary digit'). The prefix giga- was adopted as an SI multiplier for one billion in 1960, and 'gigabit' entered computing vocabulary in the 1970s as networks grew fast enough to measure data transfer in billions of bits per second.

First known use

1970

1970, in the meaning defined above