rhizoverbBeta
DictionarypermutationArrangement
noun

permutation

pur-myoo-TAY-shun/ˌpɜːrmjuˈteɪʃn/

A possible ordering of a set of things.

Each arrangement is a different permutation of the same three colored blocks.

Three colored wooden blocks appear in three different orders, same red blue yellow blocks in every arrangement.
Etymology
perLatinthoroughly
+mutLatinchange
+ationLatinaction or process

The pieces express a thorough change, and the word originally covered exchanges of things or positions. In mathematics, it came to name an arrangement produced by changing the order of a set of objects.

In context

Valence Labs32:09
permutation equivalence it's the mathematical way to reflect the fact that a graph can be represented by several adjacency matrices and the adjacency matrix that you choose does not matter because you can reorder the nodes
DiGress: Discrete Denoising Diffusion for Graph Generation | Clément Vignac

More examples

  • The digits 1, 2, and 3 have six possible permutations.
  • Swapping two books on the shelf creates a new permutation.
  • The program checks every permutation of the names on the list.

Forms

permutation · permutations

permute verb — To rearrange things into a different order.

Similar words

arrangement
A broader term covering placement as well as order.
ordering
Emphasizes the sequence rather than one possibility among many.