Definition of «outlier»

Usage examples

1. In statistics, an outlier refers to a data point that significantly deviates from the rest of the dataset. For example, consider a dataset of test scores: 85, 78, 92, 89, 95, and 120. The score of 120 is an outlier as it is much higher than the other scores.
2. In finance, an outlier can indicate a stock price that significantly deviates from the expected pattern. For instance, if a stock typically ranges between $50 and $60 but suddenly jumps to $100, it would be considered an outlier.
3. In sports, an outlier could be an athlete who consistently performs much better or worse than their peers. For instance, in a swimming competition, if one swimmer consistently finishes a race several seconds ahead of all others, they would be considered an outlier.
4. In social sciences, an outlier might be an individual whose behavior significantly differs from the norm within a given group. For example, in a study on political opinions, if the majority of participants support a particular candidate, but one person strongly opposes, they could be seen as an outlier.
5. In machine learning, outliers can refer to data points that do not conform to the general pattern, affecting the accuracy of predictive models. For instance, if a spam detection algorithm classifies most emails correctly but struggles with a few specific types of spam, those instances can be treated as outliers and used for further improvements.