sample space

American

noun

Mathematics.

the collection of all possible results of an experiment, represented as points.

sample space British

noun

statistics the set of possible outcomes of an experiment; the range of values of a random variable

"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 sample space

First recorded in 1950–55

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.

An event A is a subset of the sample space S. For example, the event “Rolling an even number” is the subset 2,4,6.

From Textbooks • Sep. 23, 2020

It is a subset of the sample space, so uppercase letters like A and B are commonly used to represent events.

From Textbooks • Mar. 27, 2020

Start by drawing a rectangle to represent the sample space.

From Textbooks • Mar. 27, 2020

Because this is a conditional probability, we restrict the sample space to consider only those outcomes that have a blue marble in the first draw.

From Textbooks • Mar. 27, 2020

It generally consists of a box that represents the sample space S or universe of the objects of interest together with circles or ovals.

From Textbooks • Nov. 29, 2017

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023