Cardinality

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /kɑːdɪˈnælɪti/

Definitions

1. The attribute that quantifies the number of distinct elements in a particular collection
2. A mathematical term that describes the count of individual items within a set
3. A measure indicating how many unique items a set contains

Etymology: Cardinality is a mathematical word at heart, and its roots reach back to a Latin word for a hinge. The Latin "cardo" meant "hinge" or "pivot", and from it came "cardinalis", meaning "principal" or "chief", the sense that gave the Church its cardinals and gave English the word "cardinal" for anything of primary importance. The idea of a hinge as the thing everything turns on explains that chief-or-principal sense well. English took the adjective "cardinal" with the sense "of or relating to a principal number", which describes how many items a collection holds, as opposed to their order. Adding the suffix "-ity", which turns adjectives into abstract nouns, gave "cardinality", a term for that measured quantity. Its Latin ancestor "cardinalitas" is the same formation in the source language.

Synonyms: numerical quantity, size