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Glite Dictionary
cumulant

cumulant

1 9.9
A number that describes a data set's shape, like average, spread, or tilt
  • noun
  • /ˈkjuːmjʊlənt/
  • Specialized
: cumulante
  • Series expressions in N are derived for the cumulants of the wave, including the wave velocity (first cumulant) and diffusion constant (second cumulant).

So the way that we got cumulants was to look at the expansion of the log.

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Examples

  • Series expressions in N are derived for the cumulants of the wave, including the wave velocity (first cumulant) and diffusion constant (second cumulant).

    Blog text (9)

  • Researchers use the second cumulant to determine the variance, which measures the spread of the distribution.

  • So the way that we got cumulants was to look at the expansion of the log.

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  • And that's a relationship between the moments and cumulants that I will express graphically.

  • Series expressions in N are derived for the cumulants of the wave, including the wave velocity (first cumulant) and diffusion constant (second cumulant).

    Blog text (9)

  • In statistics, a cumulant provides important information about the shape of a probability distribution.

  • The first cumulant is often the mean, which indicates the central tendency of the data.

Surface Forms

cumulant singular
cumulants plural

Morphology

cumulant = cumulate (semi-transparent) = cumul + ant

Formally built from the root 'cumul-' (as in 'cumulate') plus the suffix '-ant', but the statistical meaning is a specialized measurement not obvious to general learners.

Etymology

The word cumulant comes from the Latin root cumul-, as in cumulus, meaning 'heap' or 'pile'. In statistics a cumulant is a number that describes how values 'pile up' in a data set, for example the average, how spread out the values are, or whether the data leans to one side, so the name helps you remember it is about the shape of the data.