endian

Meaning

Adjective

• address.

Origin

• end + -ian; from a passage in Gulliver's Travels in which an emperor, after cutting his finger after opening an egg at the large end, commands his subjects to open them at the small end; those who comply are called “Little-Endians”, while those who rebel by opening their eggs at the large end are called “Big-Endians.”
• The usage of the term endian in computing was coined by Danny Cohen in 1980.
• : {{quote-book
• |en
• |date=1980-04-01
• |author=Danny Cohen
• |title=Internet Experiment Note 137: On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace
• |url=http://www.ietf.org/rfc/ien/ien137.txt