List of mathematical jargon

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The language of mathematics has a vast vocabulary of specialist and technical
terms. It also has a certain amount of jargon: commonly used phrases which are part
of the culture of mathematics, rather than of the subject. Jargon often appears in
lectures, and sometimes in print, as informal shorthand for rigorous arguments or
precise ideas. Much of this is common English, but with a specific non-obvious
meaning when used in a mathematical sense.

Some phrases, like "in general", appear below in more than one section.

Philosophy of mathematics
abstract nonsense
A tongue-in-cheek reference to category theory, using which one can employ
arguments that establish a (possibly concrete) result without reference to any
specifics of the present problem. For that reason, it's also known as general
abstract nonsense or generalized abstract nonsense.
[The paper of Eilenberg and Mac Lane (1942)] introduced the very abstract idea of a
'category' — a subject then called 'general abstract nonsense'!

— Saunders Mac Lane (1997)

[Grothendieck] raised algebraic geometry to a new level of abstraction...if certain
mathematicians could console themselves for a time with the hope that all these
complicated structures were 'abstract nonsense'...the later papers of Grothendieck
and others showed that classical problems...which had resisted efforts of several
generations of talented mathematicians, could be solved in terms of...complicated
concepts.

— Michael Monastyrsky (2001)

canonical
A reference to a standard or choice-free presentation of some mathematical object
(e.g., canonical map, canonical form, or canonical ordering). The same term can
also be used more informally to refer to something "standard" or "classic". For
example, one might say that Euclid's proof is the "canonical proof" of the
infinitude of primes.
There are two canonical proofs that are always used to show non-mathematicians what
a mathematical proof is like:

—The proof that there are infinitely many prime numbers.

—The proof of the irrationality of the square root of two.
— Freek Wiedijk (2006, p.2)
deep
A result is called "deep" if its proof requires concepts and methods that are
advanced beyond the concepts needed to formulate the result. For example, the prime
number theorem — originally proved using techniques of complex analysis — was once
thought to be a deep result until elementary proofs were found.[1] On the other
hand, the fact that π is irrational is usually known to be a deep result, because
it requires a considerable development of real analysis before the proof can be
established — even though the claim itself can be stated in terms of simple number
theory and geometry.
elegant
An aesthetic term referring to the ability of an idea to provide insight into
mathematics, whether by unifying disparate fields, introducing a new perspective on
a single field, or by providing a technique of proof which is either particularly
simple, or which captures the intuition or imagination as to why the result it
proves is true. In some occasions, the term "beautiful" can also be used to the
same effect, though Gian-Carlo Rota distinguished between elegance of presentation
and beauty of concept, saying that for example, some topics could be written about
elegantly although the mathematical content is not beautiful, and some theorems or
proofs are beautiful but may be written about inelegantly.
The beauty of a mathematical theory is independent of the aesthetic qualities...of
the theory's rigorous expositions. Some beautiful theories may never be given a
presentation which matches their beauty....Instances can also be found of mediocre
theories of questionable beauty which are given brilliant, exciting expositions....
[Category theory] is rich in beautiful and insightful definitions and poor in
elegant proofs....[The theorems] remain clumsy and dull....[Expositions of
projective geometry] vied for one another in elegance of presentation and in
cleverness of proof....In retrospect, one wonders what all the fuss was about.

Mathematicians may say that a theorem is beautiful when they really mean to say
that it is enlightening. We acknowledge a theorem's beauty when we see how the
theorem 'fits' in its place....We say that a proof is beautiful when such a proof
finally gives away the secret of the theorem....

— Gian-Carlo Rota (1977, pp.173–174, pp.181–182)

elementary
A proof or a result is called "elementary" if it only involves basic concepts and
methods in the field, and is to be contrasted with deep results which require more
development within or outside the field. The concept of "elementary proof" is used
specifically in number theory, where it usually refers to a proof that does not
resort to methods from complex analysis.
folklore
A result is called "folklore" if it is non-obvious, non-published, yet somehow
generally known to the specialists within a field. In many scenarios, it is unclear
as to who first obtained the result, though if the result is significant, it may
eventually find its way into the textbooks, whereupon it ceases to be folklore.
Many of the results mentioned in this paper should be considered "folklore" in that
they merely formally state ideas that are well-known to researchers in the area,
but may not be obvious to beginners and to the best of my knowledge do not appear
elsewhere in print.

— Russell Impagliazzo (1995)

natural
Similar to "canonical" but more specific, and which makes reference to a
description (almost exclusively in the context of transformations) which holds
independently of any choices. Though long used informally, this term has found a
formal definition in category theory.
pathological
An object behaves pathologically (or, somewhat more broadly used, in a degenerated
way) if it either fails to conform to the generic behavior of such objects, fails
to satisfy certain context-dependent regularity properties, or simply disobeys
mathematical intuition. In many occasions, these can be and often are contradictory
requirements, while in other occasions, the term is more deliberately used to refer
to an object artificially constructed as a counterexample to these properties. A
simple example is that from the definition of a triangle having angles which sum to
π radians, a single straight line conforms to this definition pathologically.
Since half a century we have seen arise a crowd of bizarre functions which seem to
try to resemble as little as possible the honest functions which serve some
purpose....Nay more, from the logical point of view, it is these strange functions
which are the most general....to-day they are invented expressly to put at fault
the reasonings of our fathers....

— Henri Poincaré (1913)

[The Dirichlet function] took on an enormous importance...as giving an incentive
for the creation of new types of function whose properties departed completely from
what intuitively seemed admissible. A celebrated example of such a so-called
'pathological' function...is the one provided by Weierstrass....This function is
continuous but not differentiable.

— J. Sousa Pinto (2004)

Note for that latter quote that as the differentiable functions are meagre in the
space of continuous functions, as Banach found out in 1931, differentiable
functions are colloquially speaking a rare exception among the continuous ones.
Thus it can hardly be defended any-more to call non-differentiable continuous
functions pathological.
rigor (rigour)
The act of establishing a mathematical result using indisputable logic, rather than
informal descriptive argument. Rigor is a cornerstone quality of mathematics, and
can play an important role in preventing mathematics from degenerating into
fallacies.
well-behaved
An object is well-behaved (in contrast with being pathological) if it satisfies
certain prevailing regularity properties, or if it conforms to mathematical
intuition (even though intuition can often suggest opposite behaviors as well). In
some occasions (e.g., analysis), the term "smooth" can also be used to the same
effect.
Descriptive informalities
Although ultimately every mathematical argument must meet a high standard of
precision, mathematicians use descriptive but informal statements to discuss
recurring themes or concepts with unwieldy formal statements. Note that many of the
terms are completely rigorous in context.

almost all
A shorthand term for "all except for a set of measure zero", when there is a
measure to speak of. For example, "almost all real numbers are transcendental"
because the algebraic real numbers form a countable subset of the real numbers with
measure zero. One can also speak of "almost all" integers having a property to mean
"all except finitely many", despite the integers not admitting a measure for which
this agrees with the previous usage. For example, "almost all prime numbers are
odd". There is a more complicated meaning for integers as well, discussed in the
main article. Finally, this term is sometimes used synonymously with generic,
below.
arbitrarily large
Notions which arise mostly in the context of limits, referring to the recurrence of
a phenomenon as the limit is approached. A statement such as that predicate P is
satisfied by arbitrarily large values, can be expressed in more formal notation by
∀x : ∃y ≥ x : P(y). See also frequently. The statement that quantity f(x) depending
on x "can be made" arbitrarily large, corresponds to ∀y : ∃x : f(x) ≥ y.
arbitrary
A shorthand for the universal quantifier. An arbitrary choice is one which is made
unrestrictedly, or alternatively, a statement holds of an arbitrary element of a
set if it holds of any element of that set. Also much in general-language use among
mathematicians: "Of course, this problem can be arbitrarily complicated".
eventually
In the context of limits, this is shorthand meaning for sufficiently large
arguments; the relevant argument(s) are implicit in the context. As an example, the
function log(log(x)) eventually becomes larger than 100"; in this context,
"eventually" means "for sufficiently large x."
factor through
A term in category theory referring to composition of morphisms. If for three
objects A, B, and C a map
f
:
A
→
C
f\colon A\to C can be written as a composition
f
=
h
∘
g
f=h\circ g with
g
:
A
→
B
g\colon A\to B and
h
:
B
→
C
h\colon B\to C, then f is said to factor through any (and all) of
B
B,
g
g, and
h
h.
finite
When said of the value of a variable assuming values from the non-negative extended
reals
R
≥
0
∪
{
∞
}
,
{\displaystyle \mathbb {R} _{\geq 0}\cup \{\infty \},} the meaning is usually "not
infinite". For example, if the variance of a random variable is said to be finite,
this implies it is a non-negative real number, possibly zero. In some contexts
though, for example in "a small but finite amplitude", zero is meant to be
excluded. When said of the value of a variable assuming values from the extended
natural numbers
N
∪
{
∞
}
,
{\displaystyle \mathbb {N} \cup \{\infty \},} the meaning is simply "not infinite".
When said of a set or a mathematical object whose main component is a set, it means
that the cardinality of the set is less than
ℵ
0
\aleph _{0}.
frequently
In the context of limits, this is shorthand for arbitrarily large arguments and its
relatives; as with eventually, the intended variant is implicit. As an example, the
sequence
(
−
1
)
n
(-1)^{n} is frequently in the interval (1/2, 3/2), because there are arbitrarily
large n for which the value of the sequence is in the interval.
formal, formally
Qualifies anything that is sufficiently precise to be translated straightforwardly
in a formal system. For example. a formal proof, a formal definition.
generic
This term has similar connotations as almost all but is used particularly for
concepts outside the purview of measure theory. A property holds "generically" on a
set if the set satisfies some (context-dependent) notion of density, or perhaps if
its complement satisfies some (context-dependent) notion of smallness. For example,
a property which holds on a dense Gδ (intersection of countably many open sets) is
said to hold generically. In algebraic geometry, one says that a property of points
on an algebraic variety that holds on a dense Zariski open set is true generically;
however, it is usually not said that a property which holds merely on a dense set
(which is not Zariski open) is generic in this situation.
in general
In a descriptive context, this phrase introduces a simple characterization of a
broad class of objects, with an eye towards identifying a unifying principle. This
term introduces an "elegant" description which holds for "arbitrary" objects.
Exceptions to this description may be mentioned explicitly, as "pathological"
cases.
Norbert A'Campo of the University of Basel once asked Grothendieck about something
related to the Platonic solids. Grothendieck advised caution. The Platonic solids
are so beautiful and so exceptional, he said, that one cannot assume such
exceptional beauty will hold in more general situations.

— Allyn Jackson (2004, p.1197)

left-hand side, right-hand side (LHS, RHS)
Most often, these refer simply to the left-hand or the right-hand side of an
equation; for example,
x
=
y
+
1
x=y+1 has
x
x on the LHS and
y
+
1
y+1 on the RHS. Occasionally, these are used in the sense of lvalue and rvalue: an
RHS is primitive, and an LHS is derivative.
nice
A mathematical object is colloquially called nice or sufficiently nice if it
satisfies hypotheses or properties, sometimes unspecified or even unknown, that are
especially desirable in a given context. It is an informal antonym for
pathological. For example, one might conjecture that a differential operator ought
to satisfy a certain boundedness condition "for nice test functions," or one might
state that some interesting topological invariant should be computable "for nice
spaces X."
onto
A function (which in mathematics is generally defined as mapping the elements of
one set A to elements of another B) is called "A onto B" (instead of "A to B" or "A
into B") only if it is surjective; it may even be said that "f is onto" (i. e.
surjective). Not translatable (without circumlocutions) to some languages other
than English.
proper
If, for some notion of substructure, objects are substructures of themselves (that
is, the relationship is reflexive), then the qualification proper requires the
objects to be different. For example, a proper subset of a set S is a subset of S
that is different from S, and a proper divisor of a number n is a divisor of n that
is different from n. This overloaded word is also non-jargon for a proper morphism.
regular
A function is called regular if it satisfies satisfactory continuity and
differentiability properties, which are often context-dependent. These properties
might include possessing a specified number of derivatives, with the function and
its derivatives exhibiting some nice property (see nice above), such as Hölder
continuity. Informally, this term is sometimes used synonymously with smooth,
below. These imprecise uses of the word regular are not to be confused with the
notion of a regular topological space, which is rigorously defined.
resp.
(Respectively) A convention to shorten parallel expositions. "A (resp. B) [has some
relationship to] X (resp. Y)" means that A [has some relationship to] X and also
that B [has (the same) relationship to] Y. For example, squares (resp. triangles)
have 4 sides (resp. 3 sides); or compact (resp. Lindelöf) spaces are ones where
every open cover has a finite (resp. countable) open subcover.
sharp
Often, a mathematical theorem will establish constraints on the behavior of some
object; for example, a function will be shown to have an upper or lower bound. The
constraint is sharp (sometimes optimal) if it cannot be made more restrictive
without failing in some cases. For example, for arbitrary non-negative real numbers
x, the exponential function ex, where e = 2.7182818..., gives an upper bound on the
values of the quadratic function x2. This is not sharp; the gap between the
functions is everywhere at least 1. Among the exponential functions of the form αx,
setting α = e2/e = 2.0870652... results in a sharp upper bound; the slightly
smaller choice α = 2 fails to produce an upper bound, since then α3 = 8 < 32. In
applied fields the word "tight" is often used with the same meaning.[2]
smooth
Smoothness is a concept which mathematics has endowed with many meanings, from
simple differentiability to infinite differentiability to analyticity, and still
others which are more complicated. Each such usage attempts to invoke the
physically intuitive notion of smoothness.
strong, stronger
A theorem is said to be strong if it deduces restrictive results from general
hypotheses. One celebrated example is Donaldson's theorem, which puts tight
restraints on what would otherwise appear to be a large class of manifolds. This
(informal) usage reflects the opinion of the mathematical community: not only
should such a theorem be strong in the descriptive sense (below) but it should also
be definitive in its area. A theorem, result, or condition is further called
stronger than another one if a proof of the second can be easily obtained from the
first but not conversely. An example is the sequence of theorems: Fermat's little
theorem, Euler's theorem, Lagrange's theorem, each of which is stronger than the
last; another is that a sharp upper bound (see sharp above) is a stronger result
than a non-sharp one. Finally, the adjective strong or the adverb strongly may be
added to a mathematical notion to indicate a related stronger notion; for example,
a strong antichain is an antichain satisfying certain additional conditions, and
likewise a strongly regular graph is a regular graph meeting stronger conditions.
When used in this way, the stronger notion (such as "strong antichain") is a
technical term with a precisely defined meaning; the nature of the extra conditions
cannot be derived from the definition of the weaker notion (such as "antichain").
sufficiently large, suitably small, sufficiently close
In the context of limits, these terms refer to some (unspecified, even unknown)
point at which a phenomenon prevails as the limit is approached. A statement such
as that predicate P holds for sufficiently large values, can be expressed in more
formal notation by ∃x : ∀y ≥ x : P(y). See also eventually.
upstairs, downstairs
A descriptive term referring to notation in which two objects are written one above
the other; the upper one is upstairs and the lower, downstairs. For example, in a
fiber bundle, the total space is often said to be upstairs, with the base space
downstairs. In a fraction, the numerator is occasionally referred to as upstairs
and the denominator downstairs, as in "bringing a term upstairs".
up to, modulo, mod out by
An extension to mathematical discourse of the notions of modular arithmetic. A
statement is true up to a condition if the establishment of that condition is the
only impediment to the truth of the statement. Also used when working with members
of equivalence classes, especially in category theory, where the equivalence
relation is (categorical) isomorphism; for example, "The tensor product in a weak
monoidal category is associative and unital up to a natural isomorphism."
vanish
To assume the value 0. For example, "The function sin(x) vanishes for those values
of x that are integer multiples of π." This can also apply to limits: see Vanish at
infinity.
weak, weaker
The converse of strong.
well-defined
Accurately and precisely described or specified. For example, sometimes a
definition relies on a choice of some object; the result of the definition must
then be independent of this choice.
Proof terminology
The formal language of proof draws repeatedly from a small pool of ideas, many of
which are invoked through various lexical shorthands in practice.

aliter
An obsolescent term which is used to announce to the reader an alternative method,
or proof of a result. In a proof, it therefore flags a piece of reasoning that is
superfluous from a logical point of view, but has some other interest.
by way of contradiction (BWOC), or "for, if not, ..."
The rhetorical prelude to a proof by contradiction, preceding the negation of the
statement to be proved.
if and only if (iff)
An abbreviation for logical equivalence of statements.
in general
In the context of proofs, this phrase is often seen in induction arguments when
passing from the base case to the induction step, and similarly, in the definition
of sequences whose first few terms are exhibited as examples of the formula giving
every term of the sequence.
necessary and sufficient
A minor variant on "if and only if"; "A is necessary (sufficient) for B" means "A
if (only if) B". For example, "For a field K to be algebraically closed it is
necessary and sufficient that it have no finite field extensions" means "K is
algebraically closed if and only if it has no finite extensions". Often used in
lists, as in "The following conditions are necessary and sufficient for a field to
be algebraically closed...".