{
  "id": "bit.quantity",
  "term": "bit",
  "sense": "quantity",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 5,
  "arena": "common",
  "domain": "everyday",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "a piece that is small",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "piece.portion",
      "small.size"
    ],
    "interaction": "when a piece is also small, it becomes a small piece",
    "novel_properties": [
      "tiny amount",
      "discrete unit"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The Mars Rover's 8-bit computer processed commands for over 14 years on Mars.",
      "domain": "computing"
    },
    {
      "text": "A single bit in the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine's code caused fatal overdoses in 1985–1987.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "One bit flipped in Venezuela's 2020 election results database raised widespread doubts.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "piece.portion",
      "type": "is-a",
      "note": "bit is a kind of piece"
    },
    {
      "id": "small.size",
      "type": "abstracts",
      "note": "bit abstracts the quality of being small"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "bit",
    "bits"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-bit.quantity"
}