Meanings
- Any of a family of instruction set architectures based on that used by the Intel 8086 microprocessor.
- computingSpecifically, the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture.
The x86 version of Windows 7 only supports a maximum of 4 GiB of RAM; 64-bit Windows can support a lot more.
- rarecomputingSpecifically, the original, 16-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture.
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
The x functions as a wildcard; the processors immediately succeeding the original 8086 and using the same architecture (with progressively greater expansions) also had names ending in 86 (the 80186, 80286, 80386, and 80486; Intel shifted away from this numerical nomenclature after the 80486, but other manufacturers of x86 processors continued the series with -586- and -686-branded processors).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
x86. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/x86
“x86.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/x86. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “x86,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/x86.
Source: x86 on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.