correlation

American  

[kawr-uh-ley-shuhn, kor-] / ˌkɔr əˈleɪ ʃən, ˌkɒr- /

especially British, corelation

noun

1. mutual relation of two or more things, parts, etc..

   Studies find a positive correlation between severity of illness and nutritional status of the patients.

   Synonyms:

   interconnection, interrelationship, interdependence, equivalence, parallelism, correspondence, similarity

2. the act of correlating or state of being correlated.

3. Statistics. the degree to which two or more attributes or measurements on the same group of elements show a tendency to vary together.

4. Physiology. the interdependence or reciprocal relations of organs or functions.

5. Geology. the demonstrable equivalence, in age or lithology, of two or more stratigraphic units, as formations or members of such.

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correlation British  

/ ˌkɒrɪˈleɪʃən /

noun

1. a mutual or reciprocal relationship between two or more things

2. the act or process of correlating or the state of being correlated

3. statistics the extent of correspondence between the ordering of two variables. Correlation is positive or direct when two variables move in the same direction and negative or inverse when they move in opposite directions

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Pop Culture

—Pearson correlation coefficient: a value between -1 and +1 that represents the relationship between two variables.

Other Word Forms

• correlational adjective
• intercorrelation noun
• miscorrelation noun
• noncorrelation noun

Etymology

Origin of correlation

First recorded in 1555–65; from Medieval Latin: correlātiōn- (stem of correlātiō ); cor-, relation

Example Sentences

I constructed an econometric model based on the historical correlations between the two data series in the chart above.

From MarketWatch

These images captured both the positions of atoms and their magnetic correlations across a broad range of temperatures and doping levels.

From Science Daily

For most of the 2010s, hedge funds struggled to generate profits with short-term interest rates at zero, volatility at low levels and high correlations between different stocks.

From The Wall Street Journal

Consider, for example, the inverse correlation that has existed historically between gold and bitcoin.

From MarketWatch

There is no statistically significant correlation between the stock market’s performance leading up to the midterms and how many seats the president’s party gains or loses.

From MarketWatch

Related Words

• interaction
• interrelationship
• parallel