I first asked this on english.stackexchange.com, but this site would probably be a better-suited to answer it:
In division, we have a dividend and a divisor.
According to this page, we also have
- minuend and subtrahend
- augend and addend
- multiplicand and multiplier
which are rarely used because order doesn't matter for those
operations.Is there a term for the "second" number in any arithmetic operation?
It would be a word that could mean "subtrahend," or "addend," or
"multiplier" interchangeably. Something like
"mathematicaloperationend."
The English folks have suggested "second operand," "secondary," and as fallbacks "parameter" and "argument." "Second operand" is the most correct but I was wondering if there is a single term that covers all of these "-end" words.
Best Answer
Funnily enough, a commonly used term is "term." So for example "Consider the second term of the following equation."