X86
name ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 a computer architecture based on the Intel 8086 chip wordnet
- 1 Any of a family of instruction set architectures based on that used by the Intel 8086 microprocessor.; Specifically, the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture.
"The x86 version of Windows 7 only supports a maximum of 4 GiB of RAM; 64-bit Windows can support a lot more."
- 2 Any of a family of instruction set architectures based on that used by the Intel 8086 microprocessor.; Specifically, the original, 16-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture. rare
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"The x86 version of Windows 7 only supports a maximum of 4 GiB of RAM; 64-bit Windows can support a lot more."
Etymology
The x functions as a wildcard; the processors immediately succeeding the original 8086 and using the same architecture (with progressively greater expansions) also had names ending in 86 (the 80186, 80286, 80386, and 80486; Intel shifted away from this numerical nomenclature after the 80486, but other manufacturers of x86 processors continued the series with -586- and -686-branded processors).
Related phrases
More for "x86"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.