big-endian

big-endian adj.  [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, dated April 1, 1980] 1. Describes a
   computer architecture in which, within a given multi-byte numeric
   representation, the most significant byte has the lowest address
   (the word is stored `big-end-first').  Most processors,
   including the IBM 370 family, the {PDP-10}, the Motorola
   microprocessor families, and most of the various RISC designs
   current in mid-1993, are big-endian.  See {little-endian},
   {middle-endian}, {NUXI problem}, {swab}.  2. An
   {{Internet address}} the wrong way round.  Most of the world
   follows the Internet standard and writes email addresses starting
   with the name of the computer and ending up with the name of the
   country.  In the U.K.  the Joint Networking Team had decided to do
   it the other way round before the Internet domain standard was
   established; e.g., me@uk.ac.wigan.cs.  Most gateway sites have
   {ad-hockery} in their mailers to handle this, but can still be
   confused.  In particular, the address above could be in the U.K.
   (domain uk) or the domain cs (formerly, Czechoslovakia).