Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One that lives or is located outside or at the edge of a given area.
- noun One that exists outside or at an extreme of a category, pattern, or expectation; an extreme case or exception.
- noun A value far from most others in a set of data.
- noun A portion of stratified rock separated from a main formation by erosion.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun One who does not reside in the place with which his office or duty connects him.
- noun An outsider.
- noun A part lying without or beyond the main body; an isolated or outlying part; specifically, in geology, a part of a stratum or group of strata, or a mass of rock of any kind, which has been left behind while that part of the formation by which it was originally surrounded, and to which it belonged, has been removed by denudation.
- noun In zoology, that which is outlying, subtypical, or aberrant, as a genus or family of animals.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One who does not live where his office, or business, or estate, is.
- noun That which lies, or is, away from the main body.
- noun (Geol.) A part of a rock or stratum lying without, or beyond, the main body, from which it has been separated by denudation.
- noun (Statistics) A datum that lies significantly beyond the main cluster of data points on a graph or diagram; -- suggestive of an error in measurement.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A person or thing away from others or outside its
proper place . - noun geology A
part of aformation separated from the rest of the formation byerosion . - noun statistics A
value in astatistical sample which does not fit apattern that describes most otherdata points ; specifically, a value that lies 1.5IQR beyond the upper or lowerquartile .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a person who lives away from his place of work
- noun an extreme deviation from the mean
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word outlier.
Examples
-
I speak as a man, and I know that my success rate would improve if I behaved more like the 'average' guy; being an outlier is a pretty dumb position to be in!
Ask Professor Foxy: Does My Size and Not Flirting Keep Me Alone? - Feministing 2009
-
Which, of course, means it's a bit of an outlier from the other polls we've seen.
-
The outlier is the Globe/UNH poll, which showed Patrick ahead by only 1.
-
The first is that on May 9, there was what is called an "outlier" poll by the Associated Press/GfK which put Obama's approval at a stratospheric 60 percent.
Chris Weigant: Obama Poll Watch -- May, 2011 Chris Weigant 2011
-
Of course, the outlier is Tristan, which might as well be a 20th century opera anyway.
-
Of course, the outlier is Tristan, which might as well be a 20th century opera anyway.
Archive 2008-12-01 2008
-
I call outlier, unless the people of PA are just stubborn and are not affected by someone's main campaign strategist being a boob and the candidate kind of getting caught in more truth stretching about health care and even more so about her criticism of the Iraq war.
SurveyUSA: Hillary Ahead By 18 Points In Pennsylvania Primary 2009
-
U.S. Dollar - The dollar failed to revive despite what might be described as an outlier number in terms of a June housing starts report published earlier.
Forbes.com: News Andrew Wilkinson 2011
-
Finding a poll showing them nearly tied is not an "outlier" - it just confirms the Rasmussen poll.
-
I consider you an "outlier" - one who substantially exceeds the norm so much that you defy classification by norms.
oroboros commented on the word outlier
Used extensively in Frazier's book "Cold Mountain".
January 12, 2007
simonw11 commented on the word outlier
In statistics, an outlier is a single observation "far away" from the rest of the data.
February 3, 2007
seanahan commented on the word outlier
Not to be confused with an outliar, which like an outhouse, is an small shack outside of the house where people go to tell lies.
February 4, 2007
bilby commented on the word outlier
See citation on pailliard.
September 6, 2008