Property (mathematics)

In mathematics, a property is any characteristic that applies to a given set.[1] Rigorously, a property p defined for all elements of a set X is usually defined as a function p: X → {true, false}, that is true whenever the property holds; or equivalently, as the subset of X for which p holds; i.e. the set {x | p(x) = true}; p is its indicator function. However, it may be objected that the rigorous definition defines merely the extension of a property, and says nothing about what causes the property to hold for exactly those values.

Examples of properties include the commutative property of real and complex numbers and the distributive property.