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.

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personal equation British  

noun

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

2. the allowance made for such variation

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Etymology

Origin of personal equation

First recorded in 1835–45

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

personal equation

There are experimentalists, like Picasso, and those who, like Braque, discover their personal equation and go on repeating it.

From Time Magazine Archive

Relations between the U.S. and Europe are complicated by the personal equation.

From Time Magazine Archive

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 James J. (James Joseph) Walsh

The relation between teachers and scholars is personal rather than official; and on both sides the personal equation often complicates the problem.

From Organizing and Building Up the Sunday School Modern Sunday School Manuals by Jesse Lyman Hurlbut

Well, since it's difficult to keep the personal equation out, I suppose dancing and sailing about these islands on board the Estremedura is rather a wasteful life.

From For Jacinta by Harold Bindloss

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