statistics means A discipline, principally within applied mathematics, concerned with the systematic study of the collection, presentation, analysis, and interpretation of data. It carries an Arena rating of 1261, earned across 13 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, statistics ranks #671 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,481 of 17,128 for Most Ponderous Words, #3,551 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #3,573 of 17,104 for Most Storied Words.
statistics is pronounced /stəˈtɪs.tɪks/.
Why “statistics” is a great word
The science of collecting, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting masses of numerical data. From German Statistik, from New Latin statisticum ("of the state"), from Italian statista ("statesman, politician"), ultimately from Latin status ("condition, position, state"); the discipline was introduced and named by Gottfried Achenwall in 1749. Unlike "data," which are the raw, unprocessed facts, or a "census," which is a specific, complete count, statistics is the rigorous craft of imposing order upon the unruly and making the silent masses speak. It is the faint trend line emerging from a scatterplot of a thousand anonymous dots, the calculated risk whispered by an actuary's table, and the quiet probability hidden in the fall of dice. It is the modern oracle, speaking not in riddles but in confidence intervals, revealing the hidden shapes of chaos.
Etymology
From German Statistik, from New Latin statisticum (“of the state”) and Italian statista (“statesman, politician”), compare English statist. Statistik introduced by Gottfried Achenwall (1749), originally designated the analysis of data about the state.
noun
- A discipline, principally within applied mathematics, concerned with the systematic study of the collection, presentation, analysis, and interpretation of data.e.g.“Statistics is the only mathematical field required for many social sciences.”
- A systematic collection of data on measurements or observations, often related to demographic information such as population counts, incomes, population counts at different ages, etc.e.g.“The statistics from the Census for apportionment are available.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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