Refers to the number of "words", in this case 2 or 4. The term word is not used so much anymore because it's kind of lost its usefulness in modern computer arch

Refers to the number of "words", in this case 2 or 4. The term word is not used so much anymore because it's kind of lost its usefulness in modern computer architectures. It used to refer to the size of CPU registers and/or bus widths. I guess the last generation where this was still as important was 32 bit, and that kind of stuck, hence double word floating point. [Edit] More informed description: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_(computer_architecture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_(computer_architecture)