twos complement

Fetched 2026-11-04 (live).

Synonyms: two's complement

Antonyms: two's complement

Related words from Datamuse; suggestions, not definitions.

Noun

1. The number obtained by complementing every bit of a given number and adding one. A number and its complement add to 2, where n is the word size of the machine.
   • The two's complement of 0xAAAA is 0x5556 on a 16-bit machine, and 0xFFFF5556 on a 32-bit machine.
2. The convention by which bit patterns with high bit 0 represent positive numbers from 0 to 2n−1−1 directly, while bit patterns with high bit 1 represent negative numbers from −1 to −2n−1, n being the word size of the machine, and the numeric complement of a number is its two's complement.
   • Nearly all modern computers use two's complement for integer arithmetic.

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