personal equation
Americannoun
noun
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the variation or error in observation or judgment caused by individual characteristics
-
the allowance made for such variation
Etymology
Origin of personal equation
First recorded in 1835–45
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Relations between the U.S. and Europe are complicated by the personal equation.
From Time Magazine Archive
There are experimentalists, like Picasso, and those who, like Braque, discover their personal equation and go on repeating it.
From Time Magazine Archive
The personal equation is apt to be decisive in South America.
From Prowling about Panama by George A. Miller
The trouble could not be connected with personal equation, the anomalies remaining when the observations of the four observers who took part were separately treated.
From Astronomical Discovery by Herbert Hall Turner
For there is always the personal equation to be studied in a matter of this kind, and Elderkin had given much thought to the members of his crew.
From Beggars on Horseback by F. Tennyson (Fryniwyd Tennyson) Jesse
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
