/ ˈældʒɪbrə; NAmE / noun
[ U ] a type of mathematics in which letters and symbols are used to represent quantities
► al·ge·bra·ic / ˌældʒɪˈbreɪɪk; NAmE / adjective
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WORD ORIGIN
late Middle English : from Italian , Spanish , and medieval Latin , from Arabic al-jabr the reunion of broken parts, bone-setting, from jabara reunite, restore. The original sense, the surgical treatment of fractures , probably came via Spanish ; the mathematical sense comes from the title of a book, 'ilm al-jabr wa'l-muqābala the science of restoring what is missing and equating like with like, by the mathematician al-Ḵwārizmī (see algorithm ).