Poisson distribution

UK:*UK and possibly other pronunciationsUK and possibly other pronunciations/ˈpwɑːsən/US:USA pronunciation: respellingUSA pronunciation: respelling(pwä sōn′; Fr. pwa sôn′)


WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025
Pois•son′ distribu′tion  (pwä sōn′; Fr. pwa sôn′),USA pronunciation [Statistics.]
  1. Statisticsa limiting form of the binomial probability distribution for small values of the probability of success and for large numbers of trials: particularly useful in industrial quality-control work and in radiation and bacteriological problems.
  • named after south, southern. Dutch. Poisson (1781–1840), French mathematician and physicist 1920–25

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::
Poisson distribution / ˈpwɑːsən/
  1. a distribution that represents the number of events occurring randomly in a fixed time at an average rate λ; symbol P0(λ). For large n and small p with np = λ it approximates to the binomial distribution Bi(n,p)
Etymology: 19th Century: named after S. D. Poisson
'Poisson distribution' also found in these entries (note: many are not synonyms or translations):
Poisson's ratio

Forum discussions with the word(s) "Poisson distribution" in the title:


Look up "Poisson distribution" at Merriam-Webster
Look up "Poisson distribution" at dictionary.com
  • Go to Preferences page and choose from different actions for taps or mouse clicks.

In other languages: Spanish | French | Italian | Portuguese | Romanian | German | Dutch | Swedish | Russian | Polish | Czech | Greek | Turkish | Chinese | Japanese | Korean | Arabic

Advertisements
Advertisements
Report an inappropriate ad.
WordReference.com
WORD OF THE DAY
GET THE DAILY EMAIL!

Become a WordReference Supporter to view the site ad-free.