complexity class of functions
$g(n)$ is in $O(f(n))$ means that there exists a positive number $c$ such that $g(n) \leq c \cdot f(n)$ for all $n$ (or at least all large $n$s). In other words, $g(n)$ does not grow faster than $cf(n)$. 

We say "is in" because $O(f(n))$ is a class of all functions that satisfy above condition. It is also sometimes said just "is" and written $g(n) = O(f(n))$ but in my opinion this is too misleading because equality here is not symmetric.

That an algorithm is in a complexity class $O(f(n))$ means that a function $g$ that measures the number of basic calculation steps (dependant of the input size $n$) of this algorithm is in $O(f(n))$.

Useful links:


Big O notation
Time complexity