Pfaffian
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The determinant of a skew-symmetric matrix, capable of being written as the square of a polynomial in the matrix entries.
"If A is a skew symmetric matrix then det A is the square of a polynomial in the entries of A. This polynomial is known as the Pfaffian of A, and we denote it by Sym(pf A)."
- 2 A member of a circle of artists that met at Pfaff's, a restaurant on Broadway. historical
"Charles E. Hurd, assistant editor of the Boston Transcript, has published in the Commercial Bulletin an academic account of the literary Bohemia of New York at the time the Pfaffians flourished and Ada Clare, Whitman's friend, reigned as its queen."
- 3 Alternative letter-case form of Pfaffian. alt-of
Example
More examples"If A is a skew symmetric matrix then det A is the square of a polynomial in the entries of A. This polynomial is known as the Pfaffian of A, and we denote it by Sym(pf A)."
Etymology
From Pfaff + -ian, after Johann Friedrich Pfaff.
After Charles Ignatious Pfaff, the founder of the restaurant.
Related phrases
More for "pfaffian"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.