Is there a noun to express the property of a mathematical object being uni-, bi-, tri- etc. -variate?

Question

Maybe a weird question, but what is the best way to speak of the fact that a certain mathematical object can have the property of being uni-, bi-, tri- etc. -variate, if one wants to speak about it in general terms?

Possible nouns could be 'Variability', which sounds not to hit the point of what wants to express, 'Variateness', which seems utterly uncommon in usage, or 'Variance', which I would prefer, but which has another well-known definition in statistics and may lead to confusion if used with another meaning. 'Variation' maybe? Or might there exist another suitable terminology, without referring to the 'varia' stem of the word?

@Deepak I guess you're right, I don't like posting one-word answers though :P — 79037662, Sep 30 '19 at 14:23
@79037662 One-word answers are perfect if they yield the solution. :) — Iridium, Sep 30 '19 at 16:03
Having a cool word is great, but if you use it in a paper, don't forget to define it very precisely / formally. — Stef, Dec 30 '22 at 10:23

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 30 '19 at 14:22

3

The number of arguments for a function is called its arity.

answered Sep 30 '19 at 14:22

79037662

1,379

Note that in some context, number of variables and arity might be two different things. For instance, it could be said that the expression 3x² + 2x + 4 is univariate, because it involves only one variable, x; but has arity 3, because it is a sum of three terms. – Stef Dec 30 '22 at 10:22

Is there a noun to express the property of a mathematical object being uni-, bi-, tri- etc. -variate?

1 Answers1