correlation

American  

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

especially British, corelation

noun

• correlations
  plural

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

Derived Forms

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

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• correlations
  plural

Etymology

Origin of correlation

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

Explanation

Correlation is something that scientists are often trying to show––is there a correlation between smoking and poor health or between napping and productivity? How about daily flossing and good grades? Correlation derives from the Latin cor- 'together' and -relatio 'relation'––the word is all about things that go together. But beware: just because a study shows a correlation between two variables, it doesn't mean one necessarily causes the other. There is a significant correlation between going to high school and being a teenager, but that doesn't mean that going to high school causes you to be a teenager.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

correlation correlations

But worry not, even a viewer who doesn’t know who Blanchard is can surmise this correlation to the bigger picture thanks to Schoenbrun quite literally spelling it out for us.

From Salon ● Aug. 26, 2026

That’s in part because there is a strong correlation between wealth and longevity in America.

From Salon ● Aug. 11, 2026

Measures of correlation within the S&P 500 fell to their lowest levels in years as individual stocks tallied big swings, often moving in different directions from the broader market.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 4, 2026

“Whenever growth is this fast, there’s got to be some strong positive correlation between SG&A and revenue,” he said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

A well-known example involves the moderate correlation between milk consumption and the incidence of cancer in various societies.

From "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" by John Allen Paulos

But Mitchell wants you to make those correlations, too.

From Salon ● Aug. 20, 2026

But SpaceX’s stock actually has “almost no relationship” to Big Tech, according to DataTrek, which cited the 30-day trailing correlations of various stocks.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 18, 2026

Scientists have traditionally believed that producing the strong correlations needed for photon entanglement requires coherent light.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 8, 2026

“Internal correlations drop as a bull market ages,” according to Pies.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 5, 2026

But the correlations do not tell us precisely how population variables function in a chain of cause and effect whose outcome is a complex society.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

Related Words

• interaction
• interrelationship
• parallel