How to Use standard deviation in a Sentence
standard deviation
noun-
In this case, the offspring should be 0.2 standard deviation units above the mean.
—Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 24 Dec. 2011
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That rate, a fifth of a standard deviation every decade, is about the same improvement as has been seen in IQ tests over the past 80 years.
—The Economist, 30 Sep. 2017
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Nine of the 13 had K rates of at least one-half standard deviation above league average.
—Tony Blengino, Forbes, 8 Apr. 2021
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The X-rays from this location stood out above the background by four standard deviations.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 6 Nov. 2023
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The most extreme spikes—those 10 standard deviations above the mean or more—skewed even more positive.
—Andrea Fuller, WSJ, 22 Jan. 2019
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As a result, the mean and the standard deviation for each characteristic should be about the same—but not too identical.
—David Adam, Scientific American, 6 Aug. 2019
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This is expressed in terms of the extreme spread (ES) of measured velocities of a shot string that’s been chronographed, and the standard deviation (SD) of that data.
—John B. Snow, Outdoor Life, 5 Oct. 2020
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This would put their height standard deviation at just 0.1 inches.
—Rhett Allain, WIRED, 23 Dec. 2022
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That’s more than a two standard deviation move, suggesting the bond selloff may be overdone.
—Frank Holmes, Forbes, 2 Mar. 2021
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Rondo has one of the highest standard deviations in the league for players in and around his average production.
—Doug Norrie, SI.com, 26 Feb. 2018
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The MiniBooNE result had a standard deviation measured at 4.8 sigma, just shy of the 5.0 threshold physicists look for.
—NBC News, 3 June 2018
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To put this in technical terms, no other NBA team has a lower standard deviation in wins or end-of-season rankings this decade.
—Phillip Reese, sacbee, 17 Feb. 2018
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The only real question mark is Rondo, whose standard deviation of minutes is the thing of nightmares.
—Doug Norrie, SI.com, 7 Feb. 2018
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One standard deviation above the mean in this variable adds one year to predicted life Black expectancy.
—Time, 23 Nov. 2022
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In July of this year, the ratio surpassed the 200% threshold – representing more than a two standard deviation above its long-term trend.
—Nick Sargen, Forbes, 2 Sep. 2021
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But the standard deviation of female lifespan — a measure of variation — dropped by six years.
—Jason P. Dinh, Discover Magazine, 2 Aug. 2022
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Alphabet stock is trading within one standard deviation of its 40-day moving average for the sixth time in the past three years.
—Schaeffer's Investment Research, Forbes, 3 May 2023
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The volatility of Brent crude, the international benchmark, has fallen to around 22%, measured by the standard deviation of daily price moves over the past year.
—Sarah McFarlane, WSJ, 1 June 2018
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In all 20 of his seasons, his strikeout rate was over one-half standard deviation lower than league average.
—Tony Blengino, Forbes, 13 May 2021
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Places with monsoon seasons will have a larger standard deviation in rainfall; places with roughly even rainfall across the year will be lower.
—Becky Lang, Discover Magazine, 1 Aug. 2013
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In rare cases, the values can range even further away from the mean, and this is where the fatal flaw comes into play when the standard deviation is high: the value can reach zero, which implies extinction.
—Quanta Magazine, 28 July 2017
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That may not sound like much, but for neutrinos, where detecting any of them is a serious challenge, that's enough to make for a 3.5 standard deviation excess.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 12 July 2018
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His grounder rate was also over a full standard deviation above average.
—Tony Blengino, Forbes, 25 Jan. 2022
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Look again at that figure - the error bars, indicating the data standard deviation, are tiny.
—Neuroskeptic, Discover Magazine, 15 May 2016
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There are 10 measurements where 'Oumuamua was more than five standard deviations away from where it would be expected to have ended up based on gravity alone.
—John Timmer, Ars Technica, 28 June 2018
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Using Twitter reduced performance on the test by about 25 to 40 percent of a standard deviation from the average result, as the paper explains.
—oregonlive, 30 May 2019
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Overall, boys performed marginally better than girls in math, by about 10% of a standard deviation—suggesting only a slight gender gap.
—Sarah Todd, Quartz at Work, 17 Sep. 2019
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The brand privileges driving pleasure and a connection between human and machine, and that shows in products like the CX-30, which is a true delight to drive — a standard deviation above competitors.
—Brett Berk, Good Housekeeping, 4 Apr. 2023
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Dynatrace stock has come within one standard deviation of the 260-day moving average, after spending the majority of the past five years above it.
—Schaeffer's Investment Research, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2024
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On Twitter, users construct different gestalts of the platform through their own feedback and engagement; in this respect, Musk’s usage pattern is many standard deviations away from what’s ordinary.
—Sheon Han, The New Yorker, 5 Jan. 2024
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'standard deviation.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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