Definition of "tensor" [ten•sor]

• Anatomy A muscle that stretches or tightens a body part. (noun)
• Mathematics A set of quantities that obey certain transformation laws relating the bases in one generalized coordinate system to those of another and involving partial derivative sums. Vectors are simple tensors. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "For those familiar with tensors, it should be clear that the metric tensor is actually a tensor field (a tensor is assigned to each point of our mathematical space)."
• "The covariant form of the metric tensor is expressed in terms of three parameters, m, e, and a by ds2 = ρ2dθ2 – 2a sin2θdrdφ + 2drdu + …"
• "EDIT: A note from The Unapologetic Mathematician that I should add: the metric tensor is a bilinear function of two vectors at a given point, while the line element is a quadratic function of a single vector."