We usually have a single word for most complexities we encounter in algorithmic analysis:
O(1)== “constant”O(log n)== “logarithmic”O(n)== “linear”O(n^2)== “quadratic”O(n^3)== “cubic”O(2^n)== “exponential”
We encounter algorithms with O(n log n) complexity with some regularity (think of all the algorithms dominated by sort complexity) but as far as I know, there’s no single word we can use in English to refer to that complexity. Is this a gap in my knowledge, or a real gap in our English discourse on computational complexity?
O(n log n)== “linearithmic”Seems to have been coined by Robert Sedgewick in the book Algorithms In C. Also called quasilinear or loglinear. However, linearithmic has the added bonus of not being an overloaded term (quasilinear is used in economics and differential equations, while loglinear is used in economics and regression analysis).