Degree (mathematics)

The degree of a polynomial is the highest power of x that occurs inside that polynomial.

For example: if we look at the polynomial $2x^{3}-7x^{2}+5x-4$, then we can see that the degree of this polynomial is 3 because the highest power of x that occurs is $x^{3}$.

The name of the variable is not important. For example, the polynomial $-6y^{5}+2y^{3}-25y-58$ has degree 5, because the highest power of y that occurs is $y^{5}$.