Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of, relating to, or based on the number eight.
  • noun A number system having 8 as its base.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun arithmetic, computing, uncountable The number system that uses the eight digits 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
  • adjective arithmetic, computing Concerning numbers expressed in octal or mathematical calculations performed using octal.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or pertaining to a number system having 8 as its base

Etymologies

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Examples

  • This, written in octal, gives 666 - the number of the Beast.

    Schielhau foot change question zornhau 2005

  • We have not seen that and most of the data converter testing we have done is at Max, what they would call octal site, I have seen some dual, some quad and some octal, but I haven't seen data converters get into strip testing at this point.

    Biotech Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha 2009

  • Can these people do octal arithmetic and calculate absolute addresses for machine code jump instructions?

    Lynne Featherstone and the Ancient Order of Coders 2009

  • Oh, and I've forgotten more cheap octal gags than you whippersnappers will ever know.

    Real Programmers EliRabett 2010

  • Well, the question is: Define the octal number system and give me the decimal equivalent of the octal numbers 05726 and

    Forgetfulness ISCARS 2010

  • You made a mistake with the second number -- 12438 isn't an octal number.

    Forgetfulness ISCARS 2010

  • "The octal system is a number system with eight digits, like the decimal system has ten and the binary system has two."

    Forgetfulness ISCARS 2010

  • His teachers -- like poor Mr. Cummings, the freshman math teacher of the octal number incident -- stopped calling on him, for fear that he'd mock them and their own limitations.

    Forgetfulness ISCARS 2010

  • Fred Hoyle has ingeniously speculated that, if we had been born with eight digits and therefore become accustomed to octal arithmetic instead of decimal, we might have invented binary arithmetic and hence electronic computers a century earlier than we did since 8 is a power of 2.

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH RICHARD DAWKINS 2009

  • Fred Hoyle has ingeniously speculated that, if we had been born with eight digits and therefore become accustomed to octal arithmetic instead of decimal, we might have invented binary arithmetic and hence electronic computers a century earlier than we did since 8 is a power of 2.

    THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH RICHARD DAWKINS 2009

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