noun · neutral
outlier
UK/ˈaʊtˌlaɪə/US/ˈaʊtˌlaɪər/OUT·li·er
a data point that is very different from the rest of a dataset and may distort analysis
Examples
“One outlier in the dataset made the mean much higher than the median.”
“We inspected outliers to decide whether they were errors or real observations.”
“The team decided not to remove the outlier because it represented a real but rare case.”
Band 8 sentence
“After checking for recording errors, the team decided to retain the outlier because it represented a genuine but rare response.”
Collocations
- an outlier in the data
- remove outliers
Word family
Common mistakes
Always delete outliers before analysing→Investigate outliers before deciding whether to remove them
an outliner→an outlier
Say it for a higher band
5strange value→6anomaly→7+outlier
Synonyms
anomaly
Easily confused
anomaly
“The single high income in the sample was an outlier and distorted the average.”
Related words
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In Science & Research
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