arithmetic

noun

1. (uncountable, usually)The mathematics of numbers (integers, rational numbers, real numbers, or complex numbers) under the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

   “Note that all correctly rounding arithmetics satisfy property A1, as do those with properly truncating addition. All faithful binary arithmetics and all arithmetics with either properly truncating or correctly chopping addition satisfy property A2.”

   “[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across.[…]Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, and that in several cases these bacteria were dividing and thus, by the perverse arithmetic of biological terminology, multiplying.”

2. (dated, uncountable, usually)Number theory.

adj

1. (not-comparable)Increasing or decreasing by an arithmetic progression.

   “Near-synonym: linear”

   “Growth in the most mature markets is likely to be arithmetic; on what rational basis could one hope for exponential growth there?”

2. (not-comparable)Of, relating to, or using arithmetic; arithmetical.

   “arithmetic geometry”

   “Moreover, the latest work of Katz, involving the so-called 'Larsen alternative', provides new criteria, of a very arithmetic nature, to (almost) determine the rational monodromy group”

3. (not-comparable)Of a progression, mean, etc, computed solely using addition.

   “arithmetic progression”