TITLE: What's the terminology for whether a number is positive or negative?
QUESTION [15 upvotes]: Is there a word for the quality of a number to be either positive or negative? Consider this question:
What's the ... (sign/positivity/negativity, but a word that could describe either) of number x?
Also, is there an all-encompassing word for the sign put in front of a number (-5 or +5)? Word that describes both a plus and a minus sign?

REPLY [2 votes]: It does help to have more specific technical terms like polarity, rather than sign, in the same way that it helps sailors to use port and starboard rather than left and right. The word sign IS correct, and it doesn't cause confusion like "left" would to sailors, but its many other common usages make it less valuable. (Also, people in any specialty have an almost compulsive need to abbreviate words that are common to their trade, and I believe this very human need to have a lingo is a coping strategy to help chunk large amounts of ideas and data.)