In real-life the word, distribute means to give something to each member of a group. For example we can give 2 slices of pizza to each teammate of the group of 4 teammates.
Now, let's take a look at the Distributive Property. We will try to find some similarities with the definition of the word distribute.
Distributive Property
When we want to multiply a sum or difference by a number, we multiply each term in the sum or difference by the number outside the parentheses.
We use the Distributive Property when we have a group that has some members and we have something we want to distribute evenly to each member of the group. Notice that this property can be only used in case of algebraic terms and expressions. Let's take a look at a generic algebraic expression that can be simplified using this property.
Here, our group is the sum in the parentheses and the members of this group are terms b and c. We multiply each term by the number that we want to distribute, a. As we follow this process, each member of the group is multiplied by the same number.
