Definition Outlier
An outlier of a distribution is an observation that is significantly larger or significantly smaller than all other observations.
As an example, if we were to measure the height of 20 fifth-graders, most of them would have a height somewhere between 1.30 and 1.45 meters. A child who is 11 years old with a height of 1.75 meters would be an outlier.
Please note that the definitions in our statistics encyclopedia are simplified explanations of terms. Our goal is to make the definitions accessible for a broad audience; thus it is possible that some definitions do not adhere entirely to scientific standards.
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