English Reference
Noun

exponent

n.
C1 Advanced US /ˈɛkˌspoʊnənt/ UK /ɛkspˈəʊnənt/ ex·po·nent UK spelling exponent's, exponent's Computing Linguistics Mathematics

n.a number or letter that shows how many times a base number is multiplied by itself. You see this in math when you write 2^3 to mean 2 times 2 times 2.

n.a number or symbol placed above and after another number to indicate the power to which the former is to be raised.


SIMPLE

The exponent in 10^5 is five.

CONTEXTUAL

When you multiply two numbers with the same base, you add their exponents together.

COMPLEX

In scientific notation, the exponent allows researchers to express extremely large or small quantities in a more manageable and standardized format.

He talks about an industry which, he admits, often makes his “blood boil”, football becoming the “maximum exponent of greed”.

The Guardian· 5 Aug 2026

From Latin expōnēns, present participle of expōnō (“to expose; to exhibit, display, set out; to explain”), from ex- (“out, away”) + pōnō (“to lay, place, put”).

Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This entry
Origin Latin expōnēns
Level C1 · Advanced
Frequency Occasional
Updated