-tuple
combining form in adjective, combining form in countable noun
indicating a set of the number specified
-tuple
noun combining form
the ordered 2-tuple (a, b)
noun combining form
ETYMOLOGY quintuple, sextuple
: set of (so many) elements — usually used of sets with ordered elementsthe ordered 2-tuple (a, b)
1863 Phil. Trans. R.Soc. CLIII. 457The curve m is a (m-1)n-tuple line on the scroll S(m2, n).
1910 Encycl. Brit. I. 615/2We may regard it as a (2n-1)-tuple linear algebra.
1938 Jrnl. Symbolic Logic III. 151Each function is defined over a subset..of the n-tuples of natural numbers.
1963 J. Lyons Structural Semantics ii. 12In so far as words can be segmented into morphemes, the lexeme can be defined extensionally as the set of all the ordered n-tuples (n≥1) of morphemes (each n-tuple being a word) which are grouped together in setting up the paradigm.
1972 Computer Jrnl. XV. 232/1A structure of a string A is an ordered n-tuple T.
-tuple
1863, word-forming element abstracted from quintuple, etc.
ORIGIN: The ending of quintuple , octuple , etc.
-tu·ple
\ˌtəpəl, ˌtüp-\ noun combining form
Etymology: quintuple, sextuple
: set of (so many) elements — often used of sets with ordered elements
< the ordered 2-tuple (a, b) >
< the ordered 2-tuple (a, b) >
-tuple
Suffix
- mathematics A tuple containing the specified number of terms.
- a 20-tuple
1948. Roy Dubisch, "The number of r-tuples of pairs of integers". The American Mathematical Monthly 55.2007. Edward Kissin, "On Clarkson-McCarthy inequalities for n-tuples of operators". Proceedings of the American Mathematical Society 135:8.