claim to respect and praise; excellence; worth. 2. something that deserves or justifies a reward or commendation; a commendable quality, act, etc.: The book's only merit is its sincerity. 3. merits, the inherent rights and wrongs of a matter, as a lawsuit, unobscured by procedural details, technicalities, personal feelings, etc.:
A dependent variable? Yes, there can be more than one dependent variable. In our example, for instance, the growth rate of the plants might be one dependent variable and the overall height of the plants might be another dependent variable. Both of these variables depend upon the independent variable.
Therefore, in a formula, a dependent variable is not a variable that is implicitly a function of another (or several other) variables. An independent variable is a variable that is not dependent. The property of a variable to be dependent or independent depends often of the point of view and is not intrinsic. For example, in the notation f(x, y, z), the three variables may be all independent and the notation represents a function of three variables.