outliery

Outliery is a noun that denotes the state, condition, or quality of being an outlier. In statistics, an outlier is a data point that lies markedly far from the others; the term outliery can be used to describe the presence or extent of such deviation. More generally, outliery can refer to features, behaviors, or ideas that deviate from established norms or expectations in social, cultural, or scientific contexts.

Etymology and usage: Outliery is formed from the word outlier with the suffix -y, indicating a characteristic or condition. It is a relatively recent coinage, encountered primarily in informal, journalistic, or semi-technical writing rather than in formal statistical theory. It can function as a mass or count noun depending on context: “There is significant outliery in this dataset” or “The ideas represented notable outliery.”

Relation to related terms: Outliery is closely related to outlier, anomaly, deviation, and the concept of robustness in statistics. Unlike merely labeling a single point as an outlier, outliery emphasizes the overall presence or influence of atypical observations within a set or system.

See also: Outlier, Anomaly, Deviation, Robust statistics.