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Big O can b the upper bound can be for the amortized worst case though.

The other notations (small o and omega) are about scaling (small o doesn't allow constant factors) and pinching (omega means there are two constant factors, one of which forms a lower bound, and the other an upper bound.

True, the word amortized (i.e. average) is left out here, which still makes people's usage imprecise. But there is a decent argument that amortized is more meaningful than worst-case. Because amortized gives expected throughput and latency, whereas worst-case says very little about throughput and only informs you on the 99th percentile of latency.




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