incidence
Pluralincidences
- 1How often something happens, or how common it is.
Like counting how many days it rains in a month.
The incidence of late buses has gone up this month.
We saw a high incidence of typing errors in the new system.
Similarrate, frequency, prevalence, occurrence
- 2The fact of something happening or taking place.
Like the very moment a thing actually happens.
The incidence of the storm caught the town off guard.
No one had predicted the incidence of such a rare event.
Similaroccurrence
Note
- 3How many people in a group get a disease over a set period of time.
Like counting how many new people catch a cold each month.
The incidence of measles dropped sharply after the vaccine arrived.
Doctors watch the incidence of new infections each week.
Similarrate
Note
- 4The hitting of light, rays, or a moving object against a surface.
Like the way a ball hits a wall when you throw it.
The incidence of sunlight on the panel heats it up.
Engineers studied the incidence of the beam on the mirror.
Note
- 5The way a cost or tax really falls on different people.
Like deciding who really pays when a price goes up.
The incidence of the new tax fell mostly on renters.
Lawmakers argued about the incidence of the extra fee.
Similarburden
Note
- 6When a point sits on a line, or a line sits on a flat surface.
Like a dot resting exactly on a drawn line.
The incidence of the point on the line is easy to check.
Students checked the incidence of the line on the flat surface.
Note
- 7In a graph, the link between an edge and a point it joins.
Like a road touching a town at each of its ends.
The incidence of the edge with that point is shown in the diagram.
We listed the incidence of each edge with its two end points.
Note
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of incidence apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
It came from Latin words meaning "to fall on," from "in" (on) and "cadere" (to fall). It reached English through French.