may be said to be an extension field (or simply an extension) of .
If a field exists which is a subfield of and of which is a subfield, then we may call an intermediate field (of ), or an intermediate extension or subextension (of , or perhaps of ).
The field is a -vector space. Its dimension is called the degree of the extension, denoted .
The construction is called the trivial extension.
Field extensions are fundamental in algebraic number theory and in the study of polynomial roots through Galois theory, and are widely used in algebraic geometry.