adjective
- of or relating to commutation, exchange, substitution, or interchange.
- Mathematics.
- (of a binary operation) having the property that one term operating on a second is equal to the second operating on the first, as a × b = b × a.
- having reference to this property: commutative law for multiplication.
adjective
- relating to or involving substitution
- maths logic
- (of an operator) giving the same result irrespective of the order of the arguments; thus disjunction and addition are commutative but implication and subtraction are not
- relating to this propertythe commutative law of addition
adj.1530s, from Medieval Latin commutativus, from Latin commutat-, past participle stem of commutare (see commute (v.)).
- Of or relating to binary operations for which changing the order of the inputs does not change the result of the operation. For example, addition is commutative, since a + b = b + a for any two numbers a and b, while subtraction is not commutative, since a – b ≠ a – b unless both a and b are zero. See also associative distributive.