The term "not equal to" is a mathematical symbol represented as "≠". It indicates that two values or expressions do not have the same quantity or quality. For example, if you have the numbers 3 and 5, you can say that 3 ≠ 5 because they are different. In programming and logic, "not equal to" is often used in conditional statements to compare values. For instance, in a programming language like Python, you might check if a variable x is not equal to 10 using the expression "x ≠ 10". This helps in making decisions based on whether values differ.