probability curve

American  

noun

Statistics.

1. a curve that describes the distribution of probability over the values of a random variable.

2. normal curve.

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Etymology

Origin of probability curve

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

By contrast, the Risky Business analysis, which dispassionately lays out damages to specific places and economic sectors along a probability curve as the temperature rises well past two degrees, allows for the kind of cost-benefit assessment that could mobilize effective action.

From New York Times

In the face of black swans — also known as fat-tail events, for the way their occurrences are distributed along a probability curve — market pricing may be impossible.

From New York Times

He declares that the normal probability curve, used by Dr. Rhine, requires for proper operation chance scores as far below the average as good scores go above it.

From Time Magazine Archive

Now, amidst the casual atmosphere of a subdued county fair, a visitor can "see" his voice, watch a working model steel mill, scramble through a captured German submarine, ride an elevator down to an operating coal mine under the museum, watch thousands of plastic balls fall into a probability curve, follow a feather and a penny as they fall at the same rate in a vacuum.

From Time Magazine Archive

The curve connecting the tops of the columns of peas is the normal probability curve.

From Project Gutenberg