Polymorphism vs Overriding vs Overloading

Question

In terms of Java, when someone asks:

what is polymorphism?

Would overloading or overriding be

Answer 1

Specifically saying overloading or overriding doesn't give the full picture. Polymorphism is simply the ability of an object to specialize its behavior based on its type.

I would disagree with some of the answers here in that overloading is a form of polymorphism (parametric polymorphism) in the case that a method with the same name can behave differently give different parameter types. A good example is operator overloading. You can define "+" to accept different types of parameters -- say strings or int's -- and based on those types, "+" will behave differently.

Polymorphism also includes inheritance and overriding methods, though they can be abstract or virtual in the base type. In terms of inheritance-based polymorphism, Java only supports single class inheritance limiting it polymorphic behavior to that of a single chain of base types. Java does support implementation of multiple interfaces which is yet another form of polymorphic behavior.