Explain the term cycle stealing.

Cycle stealing is a DMA mode in which the DMA controller takes control of the memory bus for just one memory cycle at a time to move one word. It then gives the bus back to the CPU.

The controller "steals" a cycle from the CPU, so the CPU is delayed by only one cycle per word. The CPU and the DMA transfer therefore share the bus alternately. The transfer is slower than burst mode, but the CPU is never blocked for long. This suits slow or medium speed devices.