Just as poly- and mono- are prefixes of Greek origin[0], you’d probably use ‘di-’ rather than ‘bi-’ here (binomials are a little different, again), just as you

Just as poly- and mono- are prefixes of Greek origin[0], you’d probably use ‘di-’ rather than ‘bi-’ here (binomials are a little different, again), just as you have monosaccharides, disaccharides and polysaccharides[1] (aka carbohydrates). The relevant point is that it usually doesn’t matter whether you have one, five or 500 terms in a polynomial, as the largest one will certainly dominate for sufficiently large input sizes[2] and all terms in a polynomial essentially behave the same way (being differentiable, having no poles etc.). [0] The only thing wrong with homosexuality is smashing a Greek prefix onto a Latin root. [1] Latin: uno-, bi-, pauc-, multi-, Greek: mono-, di-, oligo-, poly- [2] cf. http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x%5E20%3B+x%5E20%2Bx%5E10+for+x+from+100+to+1000 http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=x%5E20%3B+x%5E20%2Bx%5E...