Dictionary

kurtosis en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˌkɜːˈtəʉ.sɪs/ (Australia)
• /ˌkɜːˈtɐʉ.sɪs/ (Australia)
• /ˌkɝˈtoʊ.sɪs/ (Canada, General-American)
• kər-tō′sĭs
• /kəˈtɐʉ.sɪs/ (Australia)
• /kəˈtəʊ.sɪs/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /ˌkɜːˈtəʊ.sɪs/ (Received-Pronunciation)
• /kəˈtəʉ.sɪs/ (Australia)
• /kɚˈtoʊ.sɪs/ (Canada, General-American)

Etymology

Coined by English mathematician, biometrician, and eugenicist Karl Pearson c. 1895 (published 1899 in "On certain Properties of the Hypergeometrical Series, and so on the fitting of such series to Observation Polygons in the Theory of Chance", Phil. Mag.). From Ancient Greek κύρτωσις (kúrtōsis, “a bulging, convexity”), from κυρτός (kurtós, “bulging, convex”).

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) A measure of "heaviness of the tails" of a probability distribution, defined as the fourth cumulant divided by the square of the variance of the probability distribution.
2. (countable, uncountable) Excess kurtosis: the difference between a given distribution's kurtosis and the kurtosis of a normal distribution.

Forms

Deriveds

leptokurtic · homokurtosis · platykurtosis · excess kurtosis · mesokurtosis · leptokurtosis · mesokurtic · heterokurtosis · platykurtic

Translations (16)

de Kurtosis (measure of "tail heaviness") · tl umbok (measure of "tail heaviness") · ru коэффицие́нт эксце́сса (measure of "tail heaviness") · cs koeficient špičatosti (measure of "tail heaviness") · pt curtose (measure of "tail heaviness") · fi huipukkuus (measure of "tail heaviness") · de Wölbung (measure of "tail heaviness") · ca curtosi (measure of "tail heaviness") · es curtosis (measure of "tail heaviness") · ru эксце́сс (measure of "tail heaviness") · ar تَفَرْطُح (measure of "tail heaviness") · fi kurtoosi (measure of "tail heaviness") · cs špičatost (measure of "tail heaviness") · fr coefficient d'aplatissement (measure of "tail heaviness") · fr kurtosis (measure of "tail heaviness") · cmn 峰度 (measure of "tail heaviness")