Speakur

Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

kurtosis

/kɚˈtoʊ.sɪs/

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.77 in modern English

Syllables
kur-to-sis
IPA
/kɚˈtoʊ.sɪs/
12
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

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.

Countable; Uncountable

noun

Excess kurtosis: the difference between a given distribution's kurtosis and the kurtosis of a normal distribution.

Countable; Uncountable

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”).

Origin

Word Breakdown

  • Root: κύρτωσις

Regional Pronunciation

  • American English: /kɚˈtoʊ.sɪs/
  • British English: /kəˈtəʊ.sɪs/

Usage

Inflected Forms

kurtoses (plural) kurtosises (plural)

Derived Forms

heterokurtosis homokurtosis leptokurtic leptokurtosis mesokurtic mesokurtosis platykurtic platykurtosis

Phrases

excess kurtosis

Questions

How do you pronounce kurtosis?
The recorded pronunciation is /kɚˈtoʊ.sɪs/.
What does kurtosis mean?
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.
Where does kurtosis come from?
It is traced to Ancient Greek.

How to pronounce kurtosis

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  2. Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/kɚˈtoʊ.sɪs/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
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