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statistic

/stəˈtɪstɪk/
/stəˈtɪstɪk/
IPA guide

A statistic is a numerical piece of information. If you are trying to prove a point, and you want your argument to have a sense of authority, you might want to use a statistic to back up your claim.

A statistic is a single piece of information represented by a number. “Water makes up 70% of the Earth’s surface,” for instance, is a statistic. A statistic is like a fact that is reached through a mathematical process. A population figure is the most common statistic you will encounter. When made plural, statistics means either a collection of statistics or the science of creating and interpreting statistics, as in “His favorite course in college was Statistics.”

Definitions of statistic
  1. noun
    a datum that can be represented numerically
    see moresee less
    types:
    average, norm
    a statistic describing the location of a distribution
    demographic
    a statistic characterizing human populations (or segments of human populations broken down by age or sex or income etc.)
    deviation
    the difference between an observed value and the expected value of a variable or function
    moment
    the n-th moment of a distribution is the expected value of the n-th power of the deviations from a fixed value
    distribution free statistic, nonparametric statistic
    a statistic computed without knowledge of the form or the parameters of the distribution from which observations are drawn
    parametric statistic
    any statistic computed by procedures that assume the data were drawn from a particular distribution
    time series
    a series of values of a variable at successive times
    vital statistics
    data relating to births and deaths and health and diseases and marriages
    age norm
    the average age at which particular performances are expected to appear
    outlier
    an extreme deviation from the mean
    mean deviation, mean deviation from the mean
    the arithmetic mean of the absolute values of deviations from the mean of a distribution
    modal value, mode
    the most frequent value of a random variable
    median, median value
    the value below which 50% of the cases fall
    mean, mean value
    an average of n numbers computed by adding some function of the numbers and dividing by some function of n
    second moment
    the expected value of the square of the deviations of a random variable from the point of origin
    variance
    the second moment around the mean; the expected value of the square of the deviations of a random variable from its mean value
    regression coefficient
    when the regression line is linear (y = ax + b) the regression coefficient is the constant (a) that represents the rate of change of one variable (y) as a function of changes in the other (x); it is the slope of the regression line
    coefficient of correlation, correlation, correlation coefficient
    a statistic representing how closely two variables co-vary; it can vary from -1 (perfect negative correlation) through 0 (no correlation) to +1 (perfect positive correlation)
    rank-difference correlation, rank-difference correlation coefficient, rank-order correlation, rank-order correlation coefficient
    the most commonly used method of computing a correlation coefficient between the ranks of scores on two variables
    Kendall test
    any of several nonparametric measures of correlation (used when the assumptions of standard correlational analysis are not met)
    fourfold point correlation, phi coefficient, phi correlation
    an index of the relation between any two sets of scores that can both be represented on ordered binary dimensions (e.g., male-female)
    type of:
    data point, datum
    an item of factual information derived from measurement or research
Pronunciation
US
/stəˈtɪstɪk/
UK
/stəˈtɪstɪk/
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DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘statistic'. Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Vocabulary.com or its editors. Send us feedback
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