Here's a polynomial:

2x^3 -5x^2 +x +9

Each one of the little product-blobs is a "term."

2x^3 -5x^2 +x +9

So, this guy has four terms.

The coefficients are the numbers in front of the letters:

2x^3 -5x^2 +x +9   coefficients are 2, -5, 1 (remember that x = 1x) and 9 (we just pretent this last guy has a letter behind him)

"Poly" means "many."

When there is only one term, it's a monomial:

5x

When there are two terms, it's a binomial:

 2x + 3