bijective
|bi/jec/tive|
/baɪˈdʒɛktɪv/
one-to-one and onto
Etymology
'bijective' is a modern English adjective formed from the noun 'bijection' plus the adjectival suffix '-ive'. 'bijection' itself is built from the prefix 'bi-' (from Latin 'bi-' meaning 'two' or more generally 'both') and the root related to Latin 'iacere'/'jacere' (via French/Latin forms) meaning 'to throw' or 'to cast', used here in the sense of 'sending/mapping'.
'bijective' developed from the mathematical noun 'bijection' (coined in modern mathematical usage in the 19th–20th century) and was adapted into the adjective 'bijective' to describe functions with that property.
Initially the components ('bi-' + root for 'ject') carried literal senses of 'two' and 'throw/cast'; in mathematical usage they combined to denote a mapping that is both injective and surjective. The modern meaning is specialized to this mathematical notion of 'one-to-one and onto'.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Adjective 1
describing a function that is both injective (one-to-one) and surjective (onto); there is a one-to-one correspondence between domain and codomain.
A bijective function has an inverse because each element of the codomain is paired with exactly one element of the domain.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Last updated: 2025/10/13 15:14