Algebra
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /ˈæl.dʒɪ.bɹə/
- US IPA: /ˈæl.dʒɪ.bɹə/, /ˈæl.dʒə.bɹə/
Origin
From Medieval Latin, from Arabic word الجبر (al-jabr, "reunion, resetting of broken parts") in the title of al-Khwarizmi's influential work الكتاب المختصر ÙÙŠ Øساب الجبر والمقابلة (al-kitÄb al-muxtaá¹£ar fÄ« ḥisÄb al-jabr wa-l-muqÄbala, "The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing").
Noun
algebra
(countable and uncountable; plural algebras)- (uncountable, medicine, historical, rare) The surgical treatment of a dislocated or fractured bone. Also (countable): a dislocation or fracture.
- a1420, The British Museum Additional MS, 12,056, Lanfranc's "Science of cirurgie." Chapter Wounds complicated by the Dislocation of a Bone, Ne take noon hede to brynge togidere þe parties of þe boon þat is to-broken or dislocate, til viij. daies ben goon in þe wyntir, & v. in þe somer; for þanne it schal make quytture, and be sikir from swellynge; & þanne brynge togidere þe brynkis eiþer þe disiuncture after þe techynge þat schal be seid in þe chapitle of algebra.
- 1987, John Newsome Crossley, The emergence of number Chapter Latency, Algebra is used today by surgeons to mean bone-setting, i.e. the restoration of bones, and the idea of restoration is present in the mathematical context, too.
- (uncountable, mathematics) A system for computation using letters or other symbols to represent numbers, with rules for manipulating these symbols.
- 1551, , A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles: Founded Mainly on the Materials Collected by the Philological Society. Chapter , Also the rule of false position, with dyuers examples not onely vulgar, but some appertaynyng to the rule of Algeber.
- (uncountable, mathematics) The study of algebraic structures.
- (countable, mathematics) A universal algebra.
- (countable, algebra) An algebraic structure consisting of a module of a commutative ring along with an additional binary operation that is bilinear.
- 1854, George Boole, w Chapter Signs and their Laws, Let us conceive, then, of an Algebra in which the symbols x, y, z, &c. admit indifferently of the values 0 and 1, and of these values alone.
- (countable, set theory, analysis) A collection of subsets of a given set, such that this collection contains the empty set, and the collection is closed under unions and complements (and thereby also under intersections and differences).
- (countable, mathematics) One of several other types of mathematical structure.
- (figurative) A system or process, that is like algebra by substituting one thing for another, or in using signs, symbols, etc., to represent concepts or ideas.
- 1663, William Clark, Marciano; or, The discovery: A tragi-comedy Chapter , Fly ! Fly ! avaunt with that base cowardly gibbrish ; That Algebra of honour ; which had never Been nam'd, if all had equal courage—what?