statistic

Pluralstatistics

Formsstatistics, statisticking, statisticked

1. 1
   nouncountable

   A single item of data within a larger statistical study.

   Every statistic in the dataset represents a single observation.

   Old censuses stored their statistics on paper cards.

   Similarfigure, datum, number

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A quantity calculated from sample data that captures an important feature of the sample, such as the mean or standard deviation.

   The sample mean is a statistic computed directly from the observations.

   Analysts reported several statistics, including the median and variance.

   Similarmeasure

   Oppositeparameter

   Note

   Here the number is computed, not observed. A sample's mean or standard deviation is worked out from the data, whereas a single data item is one of the data themselves. Keeping the two apart is the heart of the distinction: observations go in, and a statistic comes out. Like every sense of the word, it was formed backward from statistics, the plural that existed first.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   Someone, or an event in someone's life, regarded solely as a data point, with its human significance ignored.

   To the agency, she was only a statistic in an annual report.

   Behind every statistic in the report lies a real family.

   Similarnumber, figure, cipher

   Note

   The bleak, figurative use, most at home in the phrase just another statistic, said of someone who dies of an overdose. It carries a reproach: the speaker objects to a life being counted rather than mourned. The word pairs naturally with just, only and mere, which do much of the work of signaling that dismissal.

4. 4
   adjective

   Alternative form of statistical, now rare.

   Note

   A shorter adjective standing in for statistical, with the same meaning of relating to statistics. It compares with more and most (more statistic, most statistic), never with -er or -est. Because it is spelled like the noun, a statistic analysis can read as a noun modifying a noun. Where that ambiguity matters, statistical is the clearer choice.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To analyze or describe something using statistics.

   Researchers statistic the survey responses before drawing conclusions.

   The agency asked her to statistic the regional data.

   Similaranalyze, quantify

   Note

   A verb that mostly turns up as a participle, and it takes a k before its endings: statisticked, statisticking, the same pattern as picnicked. It keeps company with other verbs of filing and measuring, as in neatly docketed and statisticked. The American Society of Planning Officials still set it off as a coined word in 1943, a sign that it read as a novelty rather than settled vocabulary. In careful writing, analyze statistically is the safer choice.

6. 6
   verbintransitive

   To cite or calculate statistics.

   He loves to statistic about every match he watches.

   Commentators statistic endlessly during election night.

   Note

   Unlike its transitive partner, this verb takes no object. Its most natural form is the gerund, naming an activity or a career: "thirty-five years of statisticking." The New York Herald Tribune Book Review (1953) has books that "shouted or wheedled or statisticked at us". That line shows its favorite tone, a mild complaint about being lectured with figures.

7. 7
   verbtransitive

   Of a whole, to be made up of particular parts when those parts are counted and expressed as statistics.

   Note

   The rarest turn of the verb, with the whole as subject and its counted parts as object. Frank Graham and Dick Hyman's Baseball Wit and Wisdom (1962) has a sixteen-game winning streak that "statisticked" one win in Boston and four in St. Louis. In ordinary prose, broke down into or consisted of says the same thing without the joke.

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