Etymology

commutative

C3O1M3M3U1T1A1T1I1V4E1

Today it means: Such that the order in which the operands are taken does not affect their image under the operation. Full definition →

French commuter
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The story

  1. French · derived fromcommuter“to substitute or switch”
  2. English todaycommutative

From French commuter (“to substitute or switch”) + -ative (“tending to”). See commute.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.