Chunk

Chunk is a general term for a piece or part of something, often with a roughly defined size or shape. In ordinary use it can refer to a chunk of cheese, wood, data, or time. In technical contexts, a chunk is typically a fixed or semantically meaningful unit that can be processed, transferred, or stored independently of other units.

In linguistics and cognitive psychology, a chunk is a unit of information treated as a single item in memory. The process of chunking groups unrelated elements into larger units, such as phone numbers formatted as 3-3-4, reducing cognitive load and improving recall.

In computing, a chunk is a piece of data or a block used in processing and transmission. File systems and databases store data in chunks; network protocols may transmit data in chunks. HTTP/1.1’s chunked transfer encoding sends the response body in chunks with explicit length markers. Many peer-to-peer and distributed storage systems divide files into chunks to improve resilience and enable parallel processing.

In video games and three-dimensional environments, a chunk denotes a spatial region managed independently by the engine. For example, in Minecraft the world is divided into chunks measuring 16 by 16 blocks on the horizontal plane, which are loaded and unloaded as the player moves.

Beyond these uses, chunk can function as a general verb meaning to divide something into chunks; chunking refers to the act of forming such segments and is a common technique in learning, data processing, and communication.