statistician

American  

[stat-i-stish-uhn] / ˌstæt ɪˈstɪʃ ən /

noun

1. an expert in or compiler of statistics.

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statistician British  

/ ˌstætɪˈstɪʃən /

noun

1. a person who specializes in or is skilled at statistics

2. a person who compiles statistics

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Etymology

Origin of statistician

First recorded in 1815–25; statist(ics) + -ician

Explanation

Numbers, numbers and more numbers. A statistician is a math expert who uses huge amounts of data to figure out how likely it is that something will happen, like your chances of winning the lottery. See the word statistics in statistician? A statistician is an expert in the field of statistics, something you hear or see every day — the percentage of Americans who have cell phones, or how likely you are to be fit and healthy if you live in Oregon are statistics. The people who figure these things out are statisticians.

Example Sentences

Senior government statistician Yu Weining said Monday that Beijing’s front-loaded proactive policy measures helped lift industrial profit.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 27, 2026

The limitation around death “really complicates the interpretation of what the market is doing,” says Harry Crane, a Rutgers statistician who sits on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Innovation Advisory Committee.

From Barron's • Mar. 2, 2026

Greg Auclair, a statistician at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, told BBC Verify that there has been an uptick in foreign investment in the US over the past year.

From BBC • Feb. 25, 2026

An oversight board will now consider the situation, the spokeswoman added, and the chief statistician will provide an update in due course.

From BBC • Feb. 22, 2026

Rudolph Zam- bardino, a statistician at North Staffordshire Polytechnic, in England, has pointed out that the lack of direct data forces researchers into salvos of extrapolation.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann