How many bits is a WORD and is that constant over different architectures?

Question

Is a machine WORD always the same or does it depend on the machine architecture? And is the meaning of the word WORD context sensitive or generally applicable?

Answer 1

WORD is a Windows specific 16-bit integer type, and is hardware independent.

If you mean a machine word, then there's no need to shout.

Answer 2

A "word" in small letters depends on the architecture.

A "WORD" in capital letters, as defined in Windows SDK, is 16 bits.

Similarly: "DWORD" - (double word) 32 bits. "QWORD" ... 64 bits.

Answer 3

A word is typically the "native" data size of the CPU. That is, on a 16-bit CPU, a word is 16 bits, on a 32-bit CPU, it's 32 and so on.

And the exception, of course, is x86, where a word is 16 bit wide (because x86 was originally a 16-bit CPU), a DWORD is 32-bit (because it became a 32-bit CPU), and a QWORD is 64-bit (because it now has 64-bit extensions bolted on)