martingale
/mˈɑɹtɪŋˌeɪl/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.22 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
10
Letters
3
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A spar, or piece of rigging that strengthens the bowsprit.
noun
A stochastic process for which the conditional expectation of future values given the sequence of all prior values is equal to the current value.
Example Sentences
- "I’ll be bound, Lady Ashton understands every machine for breaking in the human mind, and there are as many as there are cannon-bit, martingales, and cavessons for young colts."
- "If a gambler plays a fair game repeatedly, his payoff over time is a martingale."
- "The Russians were both martingaling it—doubling their bets when they lost."
Etymology
From Middle French martingale, from Occitan martegalo, feminine form of martegal, an inhabitant of Martigues, which is from Latin maritima. Possibly merged with Spanish almártaga. The meaning in gambling may come from an old usage of à la martingale to mean absurdly or foolishly.https://people.math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/class/sem/html/home/notes/martingales/martingales.pdf
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: martingale, martegalo, maritima, almártaga