bit

/bit/

noun — “the smallest useful piece of information… and occasionally the smallest useful thought.”

[from the mainstream word and Binary digIT]

Bit is the fundamental unit of information in computing. At the technical level, a bit represents a quantity that can exist in one of two possible states. Those states are commonly expressed as 0 and 1, but may also represent true and false, on and off, yes and no, or any other pair of mutually exclusive outcomes.