law of averages en · NOUN
Meanings
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The statistical tendency toward a fixed proportion in the results when an experiment is repeated a large number of times.
... as they will not have sufficient distribution of risk to permit the law of averages to play its part and a severe total loss may ...
1919, William David Winter, Marine Insurance: Its Principles and Practice, McGraw-Hill, page 96:It is upon the ideas of 'repeated experimentation' and the law of averages that many of our notions of chance are founded.
1986, Geoffrey Grimmett, Dominic Welsh, Probability: An Introduction, OUP, →ISBN, page 124:Second Law - The Law of Averages. Whenever something (such as throwing a die) can have more than one result, if all the possible results have an equal chance ...
1971, Russell Langley, Practical Statistics Simply Explained, Courier Dover Publications, →ISBN, page 22:Near-synonym: law of large numbers (not always differentiated)
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(informal) An imaginary or perceived "law" of probabilities which is wrongly used to predict results in the short-term.
In the nature of things a good many somebodies are always in hospital, and the law of averages had picked on me to be one of them a week or so before. It might just as easily have been the week before that - in which case I'd not be writing now: I'd not be here at all.
1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 7:This coin has landed on heads ten times, so by the law of averages it must land on tails next time.
- A real or purported law from centuries past regarding the distribution of recompense after a loss at sea due to an act of God, said by some (but not others) to explain why the word average evolved a sense having to do with means, medians, modes, etc.
Synonyms
Translations (2)
hu átlagok törvénye (statistical tendency) · tl batas ng balasak (statistical tendency)