Vocabulary for the 4 basic operations.


In order to follow all of my descriptions of what's going on, you need some basic vocabulary.  Hopefully, you know a lot of these already, and the rest you need to memorize now.  If you aren't sure about the meaning of any of these terms you should start by looking them up (using the index) in the textbook.

Addition:

summand + summand = sum
     or
addend + addend = sum

Subtraction:
minuend - subtrahend = difference
(note that minuend and subtrahend are in alphabetical order--that's how I keep them straight)

Multiplication:
factor × factor = product

Division:
dividend ÷ divisor = quotient
The ones I have trouble keeping straight are dividend and divisor.  It helps to know that a number is a divisor of another number if it divides evenly into that number.  Another way of saying that is to say that a divisor is a factor of the dividend.  Even if there is a remainder, we still call the number that the dividend is divided by the divisor.