Mathematics is given special importance in the system of school subjects and in the process of training students in the secondary school. In textbooks, a large number of mathematical terms are presented, defined, explained, exemplified. In this article I set out to study the structure of terms from mathematics textbooks. I established that they have a different structure (the number of terms with syntagmatic structure is higher, smaller - the number of those with simple structure, of those derived from other words). In most of the cases, the terms are not accompanied by images that would make it easier for students to understand and assimilate them.