Sentence:  The <WSD>determinant</WSD> of a square matrix A_{(n)} is a function (actually a polynomial function) of the elements a_{ij} of A. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A scalar that encodes certain characteristics of a given transformation matrix; the unique scalar function over square matrices which is distributive over matrix multiplication, multilinear in the rows and columns, and takes the value 1 for the unit matrix; "abbreviated as:" det.