hexadecimal

   Base  16.  Coined  in the early 1950s to replace earlier sexadecimal,
   which  was  too racy and amusing for stuffy IBM, and later adopted by
   the rest of the industry.

   Actually,  neither  term is etymologically pure. If we take binary to
   be  paradigmatic,  the  most etymologically correct term for base 10,
   for example, is `denary', which comes from `deni' (ten at a time, ten
   each),  a  Latin  distributive  number;  the  corresponding  term for
   base-16 would be something like `sendenary'. "Decimal" comes from the
   combining  root  of  decem,  Latin  for 10. If wish to create a truly
   analogous  word  for base 16, we should start with sedecim, Latin for
   16.  Ergo,  sedecimal  is  the word that would have been created by a
   Latin  scholar.  The  `sexa-'  prefix  is Latin but incorrect in this
   context, and `hexa-' is Greek. The word octal is similarly incorrect;
   a correct form would be `octaval' (to go with decimal), or `octonary'
   (to  go  with  binary).  If anyone ever implements a base-3 computer,
   computer scientists will be faced with the unprecedented dilemma of a
   choice  between  two  correct  forms; both ternary and trinary have a
   claim to this throne.

[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {hex}]