null hypothesis

American  

noun

1. (in the statistical testing of a hypothesis) the hypothesis to be tested.

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null hypothesis British  

noun

1. statistics the residual hypothesis if the alternative hypothesis tested against it fails to achieve a predetermined significance level Compare hypothesis testing alternative hypothesis

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Etymology

Origin of null hypothesis

First recorded in 1930–35

Compare meaning

How does null-hypothesis compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• null hypothesis vs. alternative hypothesis

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

null hypothesis

This was called a two-tailed test because the alternative hypothesis allowed that the mean could have come from a population which was either larger or smaller than the hypothesized mean in the null hypothesis.

From Textbooks ● Nov. 29, 2017

As we will see, the null hypothesis has the advantage in competition with the alternative.

From Textbooks ● Nov. 29, 2017

The probability that an average time of 16 minutes could come from a distribution with a population mean of 16.43 minutes is too unlikely for us to accept the null hypothesis.

From Textbooks ● Nov. 29, 2017

Stating the decision rule another way: if the sample mean is unlikely to have come from the distribution with the hypothesized mean we cannot accept the null hypothesis.

From Textbooks ● Nov. 29, 2017

Thus, we can reject the null hypothesis and tentatively accept that, for whatever reason, people do seem to wait until their birthdays to die.

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