binary

Pluralbinaries (some meanings)

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The base-2 numeral system, in which every number is written using only the digits 0 and 1.

   Students usually learn to convert numbers from decimal to binary before they study machine code.

   Inside the chip, every instruction and value is ultimately stored in binary.

   Note

   The noun usually travels with a preposition: people count in binary, write a number in binary, convert from decimal to binary. Each place is worth twice the one to its right rather than ten times, so 10 in binary means two and 100 means four. Base 2, written open as a noun, names the same system.

2. 2
   adjective

   Being in one or the other of two mutually exclusive states, with nothing in between.

   Each memory cell holds a binary state, which the chip reads as either 1 or 0.

   The choice isn't binary: we can fix the old roof now and replace it in a few years.

   Similardichotomous

   Note

   Behind every meaning of the word is Late Latin bīnārius, "consisting of two", from bīnī, "two by two"; here the two are states that shut each other out, like ice and water. In argument the word is a tool for rejecting a false either-or: "It's not binary," Wozniak insists in Aaron Sorkin's Steve Jobs (2015), "you can be decent and gifted at the same time."

3. 3
   adjective

   Relating to numbers expressed, or calculations carried out, in base 2, which uses only the digits 0 and 1.

   Binary arithmetic follows the same rules as decimal arithmetic, except that you carry whenever a column reaches two.

   Every positive whole number has a unique binary representation.

   Note

   Base-2 says the same thing more explicitly and is hyphenated before a noun: base-2 arithmetic, a base-2 numeral. The adjective labels whatever is done within the system, from a binary representation to binary addition, while the system itself, counted and written in, is the noun meaning.

4. 4
   black-and-white viewnouncountable or uncountable

   A situation or scheme that allows only two possible values, so that everything must take one or the other.

   The novel refuses the familiar binary of good versus evil.

   Her essays question the binaries that shape how we think about work and leisure.

   Similardichotomy, duality

   Note

   Criticism and philosophy lean on the noun: Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee writes of the yin-yang binary, Scott L. Baugh of the admittedly simplistic binary of good versus bad. It comes in two patterns, the X binary and the binary of X versus Y, and it is often named only to be questioned. The gender binary is the scheme behind the gender-identity meaning.

5. 5
   black-and-white viewadjective

   Concentrating on two mutually exclusive conditions, as in a way of seeing or describing something.

   Her approach to food is strikingly binary: every dish is either clean or forbidden.

   The survey's binary framing left no room for people with mixed feelings.

   Similardichotomous

   Oppositenuanced

   Note

   This is the gradable meaning, the one that takes very, more and most: a very binary view, the most binary framing of the debate. Said of someone's thinking, it suggests a question has been forced into two boxes when it has more. In the meanings about numbers, data and logic the word takes no very, which is the quickest way to tell them apart.

6. 6
   genderadjective

   Having, or relating to, a gender identity that falls within the two categories of male and female.

   The study compared the experiences of binary and non-binary transgender people.

   Many of the transgender respondents described their identities as binary.

   Oppositenon-binary

   Note

   Writing about transgender and gender-diverse people pairs it with its opposite, non-binary. It describes identity rather than body: a binary person identifies as a man or a woman, whether or not that matches the sex recorded at birth. Gender-binary is a hyphenated synonym.

7. 7
   adjective

   Of data, made up of coded values, such as machine code, that cannot be read as plain or ASCII text the way source code can.

   The vendor ships only binary packages and keeps the source code private.

   Images and audio are stored in binary formats that a text editor cannot display.

   Note

   Text files are stored as bits too, so the label is really about who reads the data: a program rather than a person. Plain text is the usual opposite, and the contrast is practical, since many tools open a file in either binary or text mode and treat the two differently.

8. 8
   computer filenouncountable or uncountable

   A computer file of coded data, such as machine code, that cannot be read as plain text; also called a binary file.

   Security researchers took the binary apart to learn what the malware was doing.

   The project publishes signed binaries for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

   Similarexecutable

   Note

   By a binary, programmers mean a ready-to-run program or library built from source code. Binaries have formats of their own, the subject of Dennis Andriesse's Practical Binary Analysis (2018). Unlike the number system, which never takes a or a plural, this noun counts: a binary, two binaries, the binaries for each platform.

9. 9
   double starnouncountable or uncountable

   A system of two stars that orbit each other, held together by gravity; also called a binary star.

   Several of the newly found planets belong to binaries rather than to lone stars.

   The fainter star in the binary regularly passes in front of its brighter companion, dimming the light we see.

   Note

   Double star is the looser word: it also covers two stars that only look close together in the sky while lying far apart in space. Astronomers call such a chance pairing an optical double, never a binary, because the noun needs a real gravitational bond. Research speaks freely of planets in binaries, as Nader Haghighipour's edited volume Planets in Binary Star Systems (2010) does.

10. 10
    two-partadjective

    Made up of two equally important parts, or relating to something that has two parts.

    In a binary poison, two harmless ingredients are stored apart and combined only when needed.

    Many baroque dances are written in binary form, with two halves that are each repeated.

    Similardual, twofold, double, twin

    Note

    Compounds such as binary star and binary poison rest on this meaning, the two parts working as a single system. Several of them have since been cut down to the bare noun: astronomers call a pair of orbiting stars simply a binary, and do the same for paired asteroids and planets.

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