PACKET

A small amount of computer data sent over a network. Any time you receive data from the Internet, it comes to your computer in the form of packets. Each packet contains the address of its origin and destination, and information that allows it to "connect" to related packets being sent. The process of sending and receiving packets is known as "packet-switching". Packets from many different locations can be sent on the same lines and be sorted and directed to different routes by various computers along the way. Man, one of those cheesy animations would really help explain this.