Nolowest

Nolowest is a term used in informal discussions of optimization and data analysis to describe a family of strategies or viewpoints that deprioritize pursuing the absolute lowest value in a search space in favor of other considerations such as stability, generalization, or computational efficiency. The word is a combination of “no” and “lowest,” and it is not part of a formal theory or standard nomenclature, but it is used to discuss how different algorithms balance exploration and exploitation.

In practice, nolowest concepts appear in learning algorithms that avoid overfitting to the lowest training error, in heuristic searches that accept near-optimal solutions, or in robustness-focused evaluation where worst-case minima are not the sole criterion. It is sometimes contrasted with approaches that aggressively chase the global minimum, instead prioritizing practical performance or resilience to noise and changes in the data or environment.

The term’s use has been scattered across forums, blogs, and preprints rather than being established in peer-reviewed literature. Because there is no standardized definition, its exact meaning varies by author or field. Some writers emphasize risk management, others stress that acceptable solutions should remain stable across datasets and conditions.

See also: optimization, heuristics, local minima, global minima, robustness, exploration-exploitation.