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relative frequency

relative frequency

1 5.1
The number of times something happens compared with the total number of cases
  • noun
  • /ˈrɛlətɪv ˈfrikwənsi/
  • Specialized
translation icon : frecuencia relativa
  • Students then rank-ordered those three selections in terms of their relative frequency of occurrence.
  • relative frequency of occurrence

And one thing that it's worth noting is that conditioning never changes the relative frequencies or relative likelihoods of the different outcomes.

Examples

  • Peoples indigenous to different parts of the world turn out to differ genetically in their relative frequencies of loops, whorls, and arches.

    Academic text (1993)
  • Figure 8 displays the development of the relative frequency of economies with a debt ceiling over time.

    Academic text (2018)
  • We compared the relative frequency of attention failures between the nap and control groups.

    Blog text (12)
  • The relative frequency of each category of case in the AHS client population has also changed.

    Academic text (1996)
  • The data give information about the relative frequency of occurrence of contributing factors associated with outbreaks or cases.

    Academic text (2005)
  • The relative frequency of reflex activation is also summarized in Table 2.

    Academic text (2001)
  • The relative frequency and spatial distribution of positive and negative mycorrhizal feedbacks within plant communities remain to be investigated.

    Academic text (2006)
  • To this end, we computed the relative frequency of present connections (Fig 5, Table 3).

    Academic text (2018)
  • Category 3 hurricanes were the only storms to have a lower relative frequency of occurrence than their associated HTS (see Figure 2).

    Academic text (2011)
  • The data give information about the relative frequency of occurrence of contributing factors associated with outbreaks or cases.

Synonyms

proportion
vsrelative frequency
  • Specialized
123 3.5

A part of a whole often shown as a fraction or ratio

is specifically about event counts relative to total observations
relative incidence
vsrelative frequency
  • Specialized
7.4

How often something happens compared with something else

focuses on the count of an event relative to the whole set of observations

How Frequent

commonness
1 2.3
relative frequency
  • Specialized
1 5.1

Surface Forms

Morphology

relative + frequency

The meaning 'the proportion or rate of occurrences relative to the whole' is directly derivable from combining 'relative' (not absolute; in relation to something) with 'frequency' (rate of occurrence). This adjective+noun composition is transparent and has clear equivalents in many languages, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents should understand the MWE.

Etymology

The term relative frequency comes from the idea of giving each count a slice of the whole, like pieces of a pie. The word relative means 'compared to others' and frequency means 'how often', so relative frequency shows each item's part of the total and tells 'how common' it is.