A degree in a polynomial function is the greatest exponent of that equation, which determines the most number of solutions that a function could have. Or in simple words the degree of a term is the sum of the exponents of the variables that appear in it, and thus is a non-negative integer.

Each equation contains from one to several terms, which are divided by numbers or variables with different exponents.

For Example,

y = 3x¹³ + 5x³

As we can see it has two terms,

3x¹³ and 5x³

And the degree of the polynomial is 13, and that's the highest degree of any term in the equation.