A mathematical expression containing three or more terms, denoted by letters. It has the general form: f(x)=anxn +an−1xn−1 +…+a2x2 +a1x+a0, where a0, a1 etc. are constants (real numbers) and n is the highest power of the variable, termed the degree or order of the polynomial. A polynomial of degree one (i.e., whose highest power of n is one) is called a linear polynomial. Polynomials are used widely across most sciences, especially with regard to capturing and graphing the nature of a variety of different curves (e.g., in estimating birth and death rates).
See Exponential changes, Polynomial analysis of variance, Trend