niezerowa

Niezerowa is a Polish adjective meaning nonzero, used to describe a quantity, value, or object that is not equal to zero. The form agrees with gender and number: niezerowy (masculine), niezerowa (feminine), niezerowe (neuter or plural). In context, it often modifies nouns such as liczba, wektor, wartość, macierz, czy stała.

In mathematics and related fields, niezerowa denotes that an element is not the zero element. Examples include liczba niezerowa (nonzero number), wektor niezerowy (nonzero vector), wartość niezerowa (nonzero value), and macierz niezerowa (nonzero matrix, i.e., not the zero matrix). The concept is frequently used in linear algebra, algebraic structures, and analysis to distinguish entities that do not vanish under certain operations or conditions.

Etymology and usage notes: niezerowa is formed from zero with the negation prefix nie-, attached to the feminine form of the base adjective zerowy. The feminine form niezerowa is used with feminine nouns such as liczba, wartość, or macierz; masculine and neuter forms align with their corresponding nouns. In precise mathematical writing, niezerowy (or its inflected forms) is standard when stating that a quantity is not zero, as opposed to phrases like “różny od zera” (different from zero), which conveys a similar idea in more descriptive language.

Beyond mathematics, the term can appear in statistics, physics, and computer science to indicate nonzero quantities or nonvanishing parameters. While its primary association is technical, its meaning remains clear: not equal to zero.