The ordering of bytes in a multi-byte number. The term comes from Swift' s "Gulliver' s Travels" via the famous paper "On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace" by Danny Cohen, USC/ISI IEN 137, 1980-04-01. The Lilliputians, being very small, had correspondingly small political problems. The Big-Endian and Little-Endian parties debated over whether soft-boiled eggs should be opened at the big end or the little end. See big-endian, little-endian, middle-endian, {holy wars}, {NUXI problem}, {swab}. (1998-08-09)
