Definition of "combinatorial" []

• Relating to or involving combinations. (adjective)
• Relating to the arrangement and counting of mathematical elements in sets. (adjective)

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.

• "We now have techniques, because of these rapid methods of synthesis, to do what we're calling combinatorial genomics."
• "In a field called combinatorial chemistry, one subfield is called "phage display"."
• "CHICAGO-A new twist on the ancient board game Go may clarify the complicated mathematics behind games like chess, suggests research from the mathematical field known as combinatorial game theory."