Standard Lemma guide

tetration

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.

  • Received-Pronunciation: /tɛˈtɹeɪʃn̩/
  • Southern-England: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  • General-American: /tɛˈtɹeɪʃən/
  • rhymes with -eɪʃən

1

noun

Meaning 1

The arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation, by analogy with exponentiation being repeated multiplication and multiplication being repeated addition, ba denoting a to the power of a to the power of ... to the power of a, in which a appears b times.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: uncountable, usually

Topics: arithmetic

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: exponential map, hyper4, hyperpower, power tower, superexponentiation

Antonyms: none provided

History

Etymology

PIE word *kwetwóres From tetra- (prefix meaning ‘four’) + (itera)tion, from the fact that tetration is in fourth place after addition, multiplication, and exponentiation. The word was coined by the English mathematician Reuben Goodstein (1912–1985).

Across languages

Translations

29 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Albanian: tetrimi — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Bulgarian: тетрация (tetracija) — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Chinese Mandarin: 超-4運算 /超-4运算 (chāo-4 yùnsuàn) — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Czech: tetrace — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Danish: tetration — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Dutch: tetratie — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Esperanto: supereksponento — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Finnish: tetraatio — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • French: tétration — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Galician: tetración — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • German: Tetration — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • German: Potenzturm — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Hebrew: טטרציה — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Hungarian: tetráció — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Indonesian: tetrasi — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Italian: tetrazione — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Japanese: テトレーション (tetorēshon) — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Kazakh: тетрация (tetrasiä) — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Kazakh: гипердәреже (giperdäreje) — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Korean: 테트레이션 (teteureisyeon) — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Marathi: टेट्रेशन (ṭeṭreśan) — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Polish: tetracja — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Portuguese: tetração — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Romanian: tetrația — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Russian: тетра́ция (tetrácija) — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Spanish: tetración — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Swedish: tetrering — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Turkish: tetrasyon — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation
  • Ukrainian: тетрація (tetracija) — arithmetic operator consisting of repeated exponentiation