Phrase guide

Catalan number

noun · 1 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

noun

Meaning 1

In combinatorial mathematics, any of a sequence of natural numbers that occur in various counting problems, often involving recursively defined objects; the nth Catalan number is equal to (2n choose n) over (n+1).

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Examples

  • Cn — the nth Catalan number — could be described as the number of distinct ways in which a sequence of n + 1 numbers could be associated by means of some specified binary operator.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

Named after the Belgian mathematician Eugène Catalan (1814–1894).