big-endian

A common difference between machines is the order in which they store the individual bytes of multi-byte numerical data. A big-endian machine stores the higher-order bytes before the lower-order bytes. See little-endian.

From Swift: someone who eats eggs big end first. Also used of computers that store the most significant "byte" of a word at a lower byte address than the least significant byte. Often considered superior to little-endian machines. See also "little-endian".

A binary data format for storage and transmission in which the most significant byte comes first.

A format for transmission or storage of binary data in which the most significant byte (bit) appears first. [After X9.42]