Topic summary
Word-addressable
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Word addressing.
Basics
Consider a computer which provides 524,288 (2) bits of memory. If that memory is arranged in a byte-addressable flat address space using 8-bit bytes, then there are 65,536 (2) valid addresses, from 0 to 65,535, each denoting an independent 8 bits of memory. If instead it is arranged in a word-addressable flat address space using 32-bit words, then there are 16,384 (2) valid addresses, from 0 to 16,383, each denoting an independent 32 bits.