Katy Steinmetz
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The animals went in two by two, the elephant and the kangaroo. . .. It was a binary parade of sorts that went into Noah's ark "for to get out of the rain" - the critters were represented in pairs. If you recall those partnered beasts, you'll remember the etymology of binary, because it traces to the Latin bini, which translates as "two by two." Although "binary" can be used for anything with two parts, it is now used especially in relation to computers and information processing. Digital computers use the binary number system, which includes only the digits 0 and 1, to process even complex data. In binary form, for instance, the word HELLO looks like this: 1001000 1000101 1001100 1001100 1001111.
Examples of binary in a Sentence
Keith Cooper, Space.com, 3 June 2026
The yellow stripe represents genders that aren't inside the binary, the white stripe is for people of any gender, the black stripe symbolizes a lack of gender, and the purple stripe relates to a mix of genders.
—Nicole Harris, Parents, 2 June 2026
These false binaries were always limiting.
—Maria Ross, Forbes.com, 1 June 2026
Qubits, the basic components of information in a quantum computer, don’t exist in a binary.
—Adam Kovac, Scientific American, 27 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for binary
Cite this Entry
“Binary.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/binary. Accessed 9 Jun. 2026.
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