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Glite Dictionary
arity

arity

9.9
The number of values a function or operation needs
  • noun
  • /ˈɛrɪti/
  • Specialized
translation icon : aritmética
  • In programming, the arity of a function determines how many parameters can be passed to it.

Examples

  • OK, so that's that's the basic idea behind these, you know, having larger arity trees than just binary search trees.

  • The CREASY environment is implemented in Arity Prolog (Arity Corporation, 1988).

    Academic text (2000)

  • The CREASY environment is implemented in Arity Prolog (Arity Corporation, 1988).

    Academic text (2000)

  • The concept of arity is crucial in understanding how different functions can take various numbers of arguments.

  • Mathematicians often discuss the arity of operations, like unary or binary, based on the number of operands they require.

How Many

ternary
  • Specialized
7.7
arity
  • Specialized
9.9
binary
34 4.8
unary
  • Specialized
8.4

Surface Forms

arity singular
arities plural

Morphology

arity = ary + ity

Formed from the combining form '-ary' (as in binary/ternary) plus the noun-forming suffix '-ity'; '-ary' is not a standalone English base and the technical meaning 'number of arguments' is not directly inferable by an average learner from the components.

Etymology

Arity was formed from the ending -ary that you see in words like unary, binary, and ternary, which tell 'how many' parts something has. So, arity means the number of inputs or 'arguments' a function takes, the 'how many' of its inputs.