determinant

1. 1.

   a determining or causal element or factor

   “education is an important determinant of one's outlook on life”

   Synonymsdeterminerdeterminativedetermining factorcausal factor

   Broadercognitive factor

   Narrowerclincherinfluence
2. 2.

   the site on the surface of an antigen molecule to which an antibody attaches itself

   Synonymsantigenic determinantepitope

   Broadersite

   Part ofantigen

   immunology

3. 3.

   a square matrix used to solve simultaneous equations

   Broadersquare matrix

1. 1.

   having the power or quality of deciding

   “the crucial experiment”

   “cast the deciding vote”

   “the determinative (or determinant) battle”

   Synonymsdecidingdeterminativedetermining

   Similardecisive

Other forms of determinant

plural

determinants·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about determinant

What does determinant mean?

determinant means "a determining or causal element or factor". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in determinant?

determinant has 4 syllables: de-ter-mi-nant. The stress falls on "ter". In IPA it is /dɪˈtɝmənənt/.

What is another word for determinant?

Close synonyms include determiner, determinative, determining factor, causal factor, antigenic determinant. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is determinant a common word?

determinant is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.