Definition of "polynomial" [pol•y•no•mi•al]

• Of, relating to, or consisting of more than two names or terms. (adjective)
• A taxonomic designation consisting of more than two terms. (noun)
• Mathematics An algebraic expression consisting of one or more summed terms, each term consisting of a constant multiplier and one or more variables raised to integral powers. For example, x2 - 5x + 6 and 2p3q + y are polynomials. Also called multinomial. (noun)
• Mathematics An expression of two or more terms. (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.

• "In the above examples, each piecewise polynomial is defined on an interval with the same length and thus forms a uniform basis."
• "The idea was to start a pendulum from several different heights in order to cover a range of velocities and then to use simultaneous algebraic equations to fit a two or three term polynomial to two or three lost-arc data-points, changing the exponents until the polynomial achieved good agreement with the other lost-arc data points."
• "This isn't a trivial difference; a model that can solve a problem in polynomial time really is fundamentally more powerful than one that takes exponential time."