Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One whose domicile lies at an appreciable distance from his or her place of business.
- n. A value far from most others in a set of data: "Outliers make statistical analyses difficult” ( Harvey Motulsky).
- n. Geology A portion of stratified rock separated from a main formation by erosion.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. One who does not reside in the place with which his office or duty connects him.
- n. An outsider.
- n. 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. The outlier or mass which has escaped being worn away by atmospheric or other agencies remains as a witness of the former greater extension of the formation. Opposed to inlier.
- n. In zoology, that which is outlying, subtypical, or aberrant, as a genus or family of animals.
Wiktionary
- n. A person or thing away from others or outside its proper place.
- n. geology A part of a formation separated from the rest of the formation by erosion.
- n. statistics A value in a statistical sample which does not fit a pattern that describes most other data points; specifically, a value that lies 1.5 IQR beyond the upper or lower quartile.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. One who does not live where his office, or business, or estate, is.
- n. That which lies, or is, away from the main body.
- n. (Geol.) A part of a rock or stratum lying without, or beyond, the main body, from which it has been separated by denudation.
- n. (Statistics) A datum that lies significantly beyond the main cluster of data points on a graph or diagram; -- suggestive of an error in measurement.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a person who lives away from his place of work
- n. an extreme deviation from the mean
Etymologies
- From outlie + -er. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“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.”
The Huffington Post: Chris Weigant: Obama Poll Watch -- May, 2011
“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.”
“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
“Of course, the outlier is Tristan, which might as well be a 20th century opera anyway.”
“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
“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.”
“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.”
“This dramatic shift toward the pro-life position is not an "outlier" - it has been confirmed by two other studies.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘outlier’.
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others
impish, inebriate, contentious, thwart, money laundering, cobber, ombudsman, exchequer, sordid, bog, braggadocio, spooky and 10 more...
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oona's list
mongolian, inuit, vagabond, strange, hypersensitive, sarcastic,
hooliganisms, manak, redonkulous, extract, educe, omphalos, luftmensch, obsequious, missive, heteronyms, homographs, caucasian and 34 more...
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out-
situated at; outside; going away; outward
outpatient, outcast, outsell, outeat, outhouse, outages, outback, outbid, outbox, outlandish, outlier, outmaneuver and 11 more...
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FTL
Words listed first by me that don't belong in any other list.
licit, precis, mnemosyne, badinage, mariposa, lepidoptera, coruscation, poignant, meme, oxymoron, xenophobia, asterism and 128 more...
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anotherfailedattempt's Words
kakistocracy, conflagration, pollyanna, equanimity, punctillious, obstreperous, ribald, belligerent, truculent, verbose, lachrymose, onanism and 278 more...
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My GRE word list
polemic, ad hominem, fallacious, comity, paucity, contrite, prosaic, veracious, laconic, pugnacious, alacrity, gregarious and 176 more...
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SimonW11's Words
rodomontadizing, skeevy, skelfy, bloviate, ephebophilia, carmagnole, copacetic, redacted, lexiphanic, wingnuttery, outlier, prolegomena and 23 more...
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koan's list
bodacious, zen, outlier, halcyon, vestige, scuttlebutt, hinky, dally, hail, 難�?��??�?��?�, zocalo, parameterisation and 5 more...
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deh
fighting dementia
bulbous, croupier, superfluous, inveigle, exculpatory, beetling, antipathy, Glossary, obeisant, feral, perfidy, pyseudym and 66 more...
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week 1
diffident, self-possessed, panelist, thorough, emulate, fancy, witty, swallow, merge, forecast, fringe, executive and 42 more...
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January List
outlier, corvette, hagiography, solipsist, fecklessness, insouciance, bereft, salvific
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Words
Tweets
Looking for tweets for outlier.
bilby See citation on pailliard. Sep 6, 2008
seanahan 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. Feb 4, 2007
simonw11 In statistics, an outlier is a single observation "far away" from the rest of the data. Feb 3, 2007
oroboros Used extensively in Frazier's book "Cold Mountain". Jan 12, 2007