Simply put, term life insurance insures your life for a certain "term" (usually between one to thirty years). If you die during that time, your beneficiaries get paid a certain amount of money (aka death benefit).
There are two main aspects of a term life policy that are important to understand: the term and the policy amount.
The term is simply how long the policy will cover you for. If you die during the term, then a death benefit will be paid. If you die outside of the term, then it won't. And the policy amount, also known as the death benefit, is how much money your beneficiary or beneficiaries get paid in the event of your untimely demise.