significatives

Significatives is a term that can appear in different disciplines to refer to things that express significance or precision. In English usage, the plural form is uncommon; the term is more often encountered as significant figures or statistical significance. The form significatives appears in French contexts (figures significatives) and in some Romance-language texts to denote items that convey precision or importance.

In metrology and data reporting, significatives or significant figures indicate how many digits in a measurement carry meaningful precision. They define the precision of a number; rules vary, but generally nonzero digits are significant, zeros between significant digits are significant, and trailing zeros may be significant if a decimal point is present. For example, 12.30 has four significant figures, reflecting the measured precision.

In statistics, significance relates to the likelihood that an observed effect is not due to random chance. A significance test yields a p-value; if the p-value is less than or equal to a prechosen alpha level, the result is deemed statistically significant. Significance does not measure practical importance, and researchers typically report both p-values and effect sizes. Issues such as multiple testing and p-hacking are cautions in interpreting significances.

The term's use can overlap with linguistics, philosophy of science, and data science, but in practice significatives is typically substituted with significant figures or statistical significance in English texts. The concept remains central to communicating precision in measurement and to assessing evidence in empirical research.