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personal equation

American  

noun

  1. the tendency to personal bias that accounts for variation in interpretation or approach and for which allowance must be made.


personal equation British  

noun

  1. the variation or error in observation or judgment caused by individual characteristics

  2. the allowance made for such variation

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

See Examples For:

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

Only through the lapse of time is the personal equation eliminated from the estimate of an author's relative proportion to the aggregate of his country's genius.

From Allan Ramsay Famous Scots Series by Smeaton, William Henry Oliphant

It must be the physician's business to find out in each individual case, according to his own personal equation, just how he may be able to use at least some of it.

From Psychotherapy by Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)

That was simply an acknowledgment of her complete effacement of the personal equation.

From Famous Prima Donnas by Strang, Lewis Clinton

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