Bond order is a concept in chemistry that refers to the number of chemical bonds between a pair of atoms. It is an indicator of the stability and strength of a bond: the higher the bond order, the stronger and shorter the bond.
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In the elementary molecular orbital theory count, bond order is half the excess of electrons in bonding molecular orbitals over those in antibonding molecular orbitals. Thus adding one electron to a bonding molecular orbital raises by , while adding one to an antibonding molecular orbital lowers it by . The configurations drawn above give , , and . This count summarizes net covalent bond occupancy; it is neither a measured energy nor a universal test for every kind of binding. See Chemistry 2e, 8.4: molecular orbital bond order.