The word "order" is used in a number of different ways in mathematics. Most commonly, it refers to the number of elements in (e.g., conjugacy class order, graph order, group order, etc.) or characterizes the largest term appearing in (e.g., curve order, surface order, polynomial order) a mathematical object. The words degree and rank also often used in similarly contexts, although they sometimes have subtly different meanings.

An "order" can also refer to an ordering, i.e., a particular sorting of a given set of objects.

CITE THIS AS:

Weisstein, Eric W. "Order." From MathWorld--A Wolfram Web Resource. http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Order.html