exponent

noun

1. One who expounds, represents or advocates.

   “Like attracts like," explained Mrs. Mailey, who was quite as capable an exponent as her husband.”

   “To think of Kant as an exponent of virtue may seem to some readers itself novel and not easily associated with the Kant familiar to discussions of justice and rights.”

2. The number by which a value (called the base) is said to be raised to a power in exponentiation: for example, the 3 in 2³=8.
3. (obsolete)The degree to which the root of a radicand is found, for example, the 2 in ^(2])√=b.

   “A Power that hath neither the Signs #43; or - before it, is look'd upon as Affirmative, and if it be preceded by a Number that contains the Root ſought and its Exponent may be commenſured by the Exponent of the Root; namely for the Square Root by 2, for the Cube by 3, &c. it will contain the Root ſought.”

   “And univerſally the Exponent of the m Power, is m times the Exponent of the Root, and the Exponent of the m-Root (or #92;frac#123;1#125;#123;m#125; Power) is #92;frac#123;1#125;#123;m#125; times the Exponent of the Root.”

   “The notation by which the root is expressed, is the mark #92;sqrt#123;#125; called a radical, placed over the letter, with an exponent to the left indicating the order of the root.”

4. A phonological manifestation of a morphosyntactic property; in layman's terms, the expression of one or more grammatical properties by sound.

   “However, there have been no examples presented of gender systems where the plain n triggers one exponent for gender agreement, and the male and female ns together trigger a different exponent.”

5. The part of a floating-point number that represents its exponent value.