Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A relationship or connection between two things based on co-occurrence or pattern of change.
  • noun Statistics The tendency for two values or variables to change together, in either the same or opposite way.
  • noun An act of correlating or the condition of being correlated.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Reciprocal relation; interdependence or interconnection.
  • noun The act of bringing into orderly connection or reciprocal relation.
  • noun In physiology, specifically, the interdependence of organs or functions; the reciprocal relations of organs.
  • noun In geometry, such a relation between two planes that to each intersection of lines in either there corresponds in the other a line of junction between points corresponding to the intersecting lines in the first plane; also, a relation between two spaces such that to every point in either there corresponds a plane in the other, three planes in either intersecting in a point corresponding to the plane of the three points in the other space to which the three intersecting planes correspond; more generally, a relation between figures, propositions, etc., derivable from one another in an n-dimensional space by interchanging points with (n—1) -dimensional flats.
  • noun In statistics, the relation of two or more variable quantities.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Reciprocal relation; corresponding similarity or parallelism of relation or law; capacity of being converted into, or of giving place to, one another, under certain conditions.
  • noun the relation to one another of different forms of energy; -- usually having some reference to the principle of conservation of energy. See Conservation of energy, under Conservation.
  • noun the relation between the forces which matter, endowed with various forms of energy, may exert.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A reciprocal, parallel or complementary relationship between two or more comparable objects
  • noun statistics One of the several measures of the linear statistical relationship between two random variables, indicating both the strength and direction of the relationship.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a reciprocal relation between two or more things
  • noun a statistic representing how closely two variables co-vary; it can vary from -1 (perfect negative correlation) through 0 (no correlation) to +1 (perfect positive correlation)
  • noun a statistical relation between two or more variables such that systematic changes in the value of one variable are accompanied by systematic changes in the other

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Medieval Latin correlātiō, correlātiōn- : Latin com-, com- + Latin relātiō, relation, report (from relātus, past participle of referre, to carry back; see relate).]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word correlation.

Examples

  • Historically, the dependency between two securities has been calculated using linear correlation or more generically “correlation.

    Principles Of Diversification 2010

  • Historically, the dependency between two securities has been calculated using linear correlation or more generically “correlation.

    Principles Of Diversification 2010

  • It is significant that in later times the term correlation has come to be applied more especially to the purely empirical constancies of relation, and has lost most of its functional significance.

    Form and Function A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology

  • Except the correlation is the exact opposite of conventional wisdom -- the economy crashes after tax cuts and takes off after tax increases.

    Cenk Uygur: The Big Republican Lie on Tax Cuts Cenk Uygur 2010

  • Except the correlation is the exact opposite of conventional wisdom -- the economy crashes after tax cuts and takes off after tax increases.

    Cenk Uygur: The Big Republican Lie on Tax Cuts Cenk Uygur 2010

  • Except the correlation is the opposite of conventional wisdom: the economy crashes after tax cuts and takes off after tax increases.

    Cenk Uygur: The Big Republican Lie on Tax Cuts Cenk Uygur 2010

  • Except the correlation is the exact opposite of conventional wisdom -- the economy crashes after tax cuts and takes off after tax increases.

    Cenk Uygur: The Big Republican Lie on Tax Cuts Cenk Uygur 2010

  • But the correlation is a short term correlation – there is little to no correlation in the long term trends.

    Alexander et al 2007 « Climate Audit 2007

  • They concluded that because of our failure to prevail in Vietnam and because of Nixon's willingness to come to Moscow and make deals -- the first SALT treaty and so on -- with the Russians that what they called the correlation of forces in the world had shifted to their advantage and that they were now on the winning wicket.

    Why Gorbachev Happened: His Triumphs & His Failure 1991

  • These assertions are based on increases in correlation over time between general circulation model prognostications and observations as derived from a centred pattern correlation statistic.

    About: Blinded by Science 2010

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.