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A unit of measurement of planar angles, equal to 1/90 of the right angle; denoted by <img align="absmiddle" border="0" src="https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/legacyimages/d/d030/d030890/d0308901.png" />. A degree is subdivided into 60 minutes (<img align="absmiddle" border="0" src="https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/legacyimages/d/d030/d030890/d0308902.png" />) or 3600 seconds (<img align="absmiddle" border="0" src="https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/legacyimages/d/d030/d030890/d0308903.png" />). A right angle has 90 degrees, a straight angle has 180 degrees. Degrees are also used to measure circular arcs (a full circle has 360 degrees).



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Due to computer necessities and increasing precision, computations are more often done in decimal parts and no longer in degrees, minutes and seconds.

Sometimes, a degree of a number <img align="absmiddle" border="0" src="https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/legacyimages/d/d030/d030890/d0308904.png" /> is an expression of the form <img align="absmiddle" border="0" src="https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/legacyimages/d/d030/d030890/d0308905.png" /> where <img align="absmiddle" border="0" src="https://www.encyclopediaofmath.org/legacyimages/d/d030/d030890/d0308906.png" /> is also a (suitable) number, see [[Power|Power]].

There are numerous other ways in which the word degree is used. E.g. degree of a [[Polynomial|polynomial]]; [[Degree of a mapping|degree of a mapping]]; degree of unsolvability, degree of irrationality, and many more. It is also, of course, the name of the unit for temperature measurements in various scales.