degree of freedom

American  

noun

1. Statistics. any of the statistically independent values of a sample that are used to determine a property of the sample, as the mean or variance.

2. Physical Chemistry. any of the independent variables required to specify the energy of a molecule or atom.

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degree of freedom British  

noun

1. physics one of the minimum number of parameters necessary to describe a state or property of a system

2. one of the independent components of motion (translation, vibration, and rotation) of an atom or molecule

3. chem one of a number of intensive properties that can be independently varied without changing the number of phases in a system See also phase rule

4. statistics one of the independent unrestricted random variables constituting a statistic

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degree of freedom Scientific  

1. Any of the independent thermodynamic variables, such as pressure, temperature, or composition, required to specify a system with a given number of phases and components.

2. Any of the independent terms used to characterize the way a physical system can store energy. For example, a molecule consisting of two atoms can be thought of as having three degrees of freedom: one for its linear motion (as the whole molecule moves through space), one for its angular motion (as it rotates around its center of gravity) and one for its internal vibrational energy (as the atoms pull and push against each other within their chemical bond).

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Etymology

Origin of degree of freedom

First recorded in 1900–05

Example Sentences

The city's press still retains a much larger degree of freedom compared to their counterparts in mainland China.

From Barron's • Feb. 11, 2026

On the Chinese internet, which allows a slightly greater degree of freedom of speech than the highly controlled traditional media, the push for the adoption of loong was mixed.

From Seattle Times • Feb. 16, 2024

For this reason, they are an important platform for spin qubits, systems where quantum information is encoded in the electron spin degree of freedom.

From Science Daily • Jan. 17, 2024

“But this is a different degree of freedom and therefore can be used for different types of applications. So it broadens the palette of efficiently produced entangled pairs of photons. And I think that’s cool.”

From Scientific American • Oct. 4, 2023

They can be spun, stretched and shaped with a surprising degree of freedom.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari