term

A term is one chunk of an expression — the pieces that get added or subtracted together. If you read an expression like a sentence, the plus and minus signs are the spaces between words, and each word is a term. In “3x + 5y − 2” there are three terms: 3x, 5y, and −2.

A single term is a number on its own, a variable on its own, or numbers and variables multiplied together (including powers). Inside a term, the parts are joined only by multiplication or division; what marks the boundary between two terms is a + or − sign that is not trapped inside parentheses.

Keeping the sign with its term avoids a classic mistake. In “7 − 4x” the second term is −4x, not 4x, because the minus belongs to it. Once you can chop an expression into its terms and read each one’s sign, combining like terms and rearranging become straightforward bookkeeping.