lol you're thinking too hard.

pentatonic is just a word meaning five (penta as in pentagon) and tone (tonic)

okay all pentatonic is, is a five toned scale, as you said. right now you have 2 options.

one would be to learn the box patterns and that would be the easier thing.

but if you want to really understand them i suggest learning the notes of the pentatonic scale in the key that you're playing and that way you'll know which note in which box pattern corresponds to another position in the scale.

a box pattern is a pattern that the scale makes, and we're gonna use that pattern to our advantage. box patterns make it easier cause we can keep our hand in one area and play without having to move all over the place. hope that helps. if not, go here