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What is "probability"

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probability
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
probability
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
conditional
▪ Those studies specified and estimated the conditional probability of leaving unemployment.
▪ The conditional probability of leaving the spell is also very small for men aged 55 and over compared to teenage men.
great
▪ The less compatible a pair the greater the probability that their relationship will regress in the presence of another animal.
▪ The closer one is to a second language group, either socially or psychologically, the greater the probability of adequate learning.
▪ But we have a greater probability that we shall self-destruct.
▪ Intuitively, any wage increase reduced employment and all workers therefore face a greater probability of being unemployed.
high
▪ Even when the correct word was given a high probability, there were many other words with an equally high probability.
▪ Does he need a home run so bad that he should risk the high probability of a strikeout?
▪ Even when the correct word was given a high probability, there were many other words with an equally high probability.
▪ They have shown that certain approaches have a high probability of success, while others, a high probability of failure.
▪ Wycliffe thought they would be pretty high, so probability favoured a link.
▪ They have shown that certain approaches have a high probability of success, while others, a high probability of failure.
▪ Also there is a high probability that your holiday meals were lower in roughage than your own regime at home.
▪ The more evidence, the more acceptable it is and the higher the probability of truth.
low
▪ Speed up in the parsing process can then be achieved by eliminating low probability parses. 5.8.
▪ These are then sub-divided into high, reasonable and low probability.
▪ Transitions or changes which have a notably high or low probability can be identified, as reasons for their prominence sought.
statistical
▪ The equivalent statistical probabilities for the proven component of proven and probable reserves are 90 percent and 10 percent respectively.
▪ Does it depend on the statistical probability of a crash?
▪ That is, the position of a particle could not be defined with absolute certainty, but only by statistical probability.
▪ The extremes of a statistical distribution represent unpredictably rare individual events, which have very low values of statistical probability.
strong
▪ There is a strong probability, had such evidence been given, that the government would have been gravely embarrassed.
▪ One can speak here only of strong probability, not of absolute certainty.
transitional
▪ However, a knowledge of pair-wise transitional probability is often insufficient to select the target word string.
▪ All permutations of transitional probabilities arising out of the character recognition are calculated to give an associated probability for a given string.
■ NOUN
distribution
▪ The concept of correlations, like that of probability distributions, can be extended to higher orders, by defining quantities such as.
▪ This is extended so that for any given phrase there is a probability distribution over the objects that can be the immediate constituents.
▪ This allows the map data to be replaced by probability distributions of known form and parameters.
▪ Similarly there is also a probability distribution over the ordering of items in a phrase.
▪ It is often easier to assess a continuous probability distribution than a set of specific values.
▪ Instead, both position and velocity would have to be smeared out with some probability distribution around the nucleus.
score
▪ Each combination was given a probability score based on its occurrence in a large corpus.
▪ The probability score can also improve the efficiency of the parsing algorithm by pruning out low-probability alternatives.
▪ Input to the process is a graph of inactive edges marked with phoneme labels and possibly other information such as acoustic probability score.
theory
▪ It is at least arguable, moreover, that no probability theory allows for the explanation of single events.
▪ These employ probability theory, hence the term probabilistic sampling.
▪ Statistical analysis of data requires an understanding of basic four-figure maths, algebra, probability theory, and calculus.
▪ Experimental backing is an aspect of probability theory and statistics.
transition
▪ Matrix R is the transition probability matrix raised to the power two.
▪ The table of transition probabilities for the travel example would be laid out as shown in Table 6.2.
▪ It is usual to find a progression indicating significant transition probabilities to many vibrational levels of the modes concerned.
▪ Both systems use transition probabilities between syntactically tagged form class pairs to prune the search.
▪ Reducing the length One version of the Edinburgh syntactic component used pair-wise transition probabilities between words.
▪ Many different patterns of foggy and clear days could produce the same numerical values for the transition probabilities in the example.
▪ This is what the transition probability matrix tells us.
▪ When the actual counts were converted to transition probabilities the results shown in Table 6.4 were obtained.
■ VERB
assign
▪ Each rule in the grammar was assigned a probability.
based
▪ The words are then assigned a rating based on the probability of the grammatical transitions that their tags participate in.
▪ Children with formal operations typically respond to this kind of problem with responses based on probability.
▪ What about measures based on odds rather than probabilities?
▪ Most text retrieval systems have been based on statistics and probabilities.
▪ Any clusterer should be founded on some kind of theory based on probabilities.
calculate
▪ Ninety five percent confidence intervals for the relative risk was calculated using exact probabilities.
▪ A young Salomon Brothers trader named Howie Rubin began to calculate the probability of homeowners' prepaying their mortgages.
▪ To calculate the joint probability of the coincidence occurring in any one minute we multiply the two separate probabilities.
give
▪ Even when the correct word was given a high probability, there were many other words with an equally high probability.
▪ Each combination was given a probability score based on its occurrence in a large corpus.
▪ The probabilities of each route have to be calculated and summed to give the total probability.
▪ All one can give are probabilities that particles will be emitted in certain modes.
▪ All permutations of transitional probabilities arising out of the character recognition are calculated to give an associated probability for a given string.
increase
▪ However, by making further efforts to improve certain facets of the project, the manager could increase this probability to 0.7.
▪ These latter two actions increase the probability that a client will carry through with the contract.
▪ The indications are that the existence of one difficulty increases the probability that other stresses will also occur.
▪ The child is given drinks throughout the night to increase the probability of urinating and providing a lot of opportunities to practise.
▪ The application of these tests may increase the probability of rejecting the null hypothesis when it is in fact true.
occur
▪ These are in relation to the degree of probability of damage occurring, negligent omissions and multiple causes of harm.
▪ But the probability for this to occur decreases very rapidly with decreasing temperature.
▪ This is the estimated pay-off in money terms of a given event multiplied by the probability of that event occurring.
▪ To calculate the joint probability of the coincidence occurring in any one minute we multiply the two separate probabilities.
▪ In practice the probability of such words occurring in adjacent positions is so low that the problem is negligible. 4.10.
reduce
▪ But we can and must work towards reducing probabilities.
▪ Nothing could reduce its probability, and hence there could be no reasons for supposing it false.
represent
▪ Where the applicant has no representation and the respondent is legally represented the applicant's probability of success is reduced to 10%.
use
▪ To overcome this problem, Sayre did not use probability information.
▪ Both systems use transition probabilities between syntactically tagged form class pairs to prune the search.
▪ It tends to be used for problems where probability is a key factor.
▪ Ninety five percent confidence intervals for the relative risk was calculated using exact probabilities.
▪ Phases of multiply measured reflections were combined using the phase probability coefficients.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
the balance of evidence/probability etc
▪ A decision is made only on the balance of probabilities.
▪ After looking at the credentials for miraculous claims, Hume came to the conclusion that the balance of probabilities counted against them.
▪ All those defences are for the defendant to establish on the balance of probabilities.
▪ The burden of proof in establishing the defence is upon the defendant on the balance of probabilities.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Genetic tests show a 99.4 percent probability that Hill is the child's father.
▪ The probability of catching the disease from your partner is extremely low.
▪ There is a 90% probability that the hurricane will hit the coast of Florida later today.
▪ There is a strong probability that the problem will recur if we do not deal with it now.
▪ War is a real probability.
▪ We must increase our efforts to reduce the probability of such an accident happening again.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Children with formal operations typically respond to this kind of problem with responses based on probability.
▪ Citing mathematical probabilities clearly does not establish the nonexistence of extraterrestrial being.
▪ Most students need probability and statistics more than they need calculus.
▪ They have rewritten the record books, stormed the male bastion of Grandmaster chess, and defied the laws of probability.
▪ They have shown that certain approaches have a high probability of success, while others, a high probability of failure.
▪ We talk, therefore, of probabilities or outcomes provided circumstances do not change.
▪ What about measures based on odds rather than probabilities?
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Probability

Probability \Prob`a*bil"i*ty\, n.; pl. Probabilities. [L. probabilitas: cf. F. probabilit['e].]

  1. The quality or state of being probable; appearance of reality or truth; reasonable ground of presumption; likelihood.

    Probability is the appearance of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, by the intervention of proofs whose connection is not constant, but appears for the most part to be so.
    --Locke.

  2. That which is or appears probable; anything that has the appearance of reality or truth.

    The whole life of man is a perpetual comparison of evidence and balancing of probabilities.
    --Buckminster.

    We do not call for evidence till antecedent probabilities fail.
    --J. H. Newman.

  3. (Math.) Likelihood of the occurrence of any event in the doctrine of chances, or the ratio of the number of favorable chances to the whole number of chances, favorable and unfavorable. See 1st Chance, n., 5.

    Syn: Likeliness; credibleness; likelihood; chance.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
probability

mid-15c., "quality of being probable," from Old French probabilite (14c.) and directly from Latin probabilitatem (nominative probabilitas) "credibility, probability," from probabilis (see probable). Meaning "something likely to be true" is from 1570s; mathematical sense is from 1718.

Wiktionary
probability

n. 1 the state of being probable; likelihood 2 an event that is likely to occur 3 the relative likelihood of an event happening 4 (context mathematics English) a number, between 0 and 1, expressing the precise likelihood of an event happening

Related phrases:
WordNet
probability

  1. n. a measure of how likely it is that some event will occur; "what is the probability of rain?"; "we have a good chance of winning" [syn: chance]

  2. the quality of being probable [ant: improbability]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Probability

Probability is the measure of the likelihood that an event will occur. Probability is quantified as a number between 0 and 1 (where 0 indicates impossibility and 1 indicates certainty). The higher the probability of an event, the more certain that the event will occur. A simple example is the tossing of a fair (unbiased) coin. Since the coin is unbiased, the two outcomes ("head" and "tail") are both equally probable; the probability of "head" equals the probability of "tail." Since no other outcomes are possible, the probability is 1/2 (or 50%), of either "head" or "tail". In other words, the probability of "head" is 1 out of 2 outcomes and the probability of "tail" is also 1 out of 2 outcomes, expressed as 0.5 when converted to decimal, with the above-mentioned quantification system. This type of probability is also called a priori probability.

These concepts have been given an axiomatic mathematical formalization in probability theory, which is used widely in such areas of study as mathematics, statistics, finance, gambling, science (in particular physics), artificial intelligence/ machine learning, computer science, game theory, and philosophy to, for example, draw inferences about the expected frequency of events. Probability theory is also used to describe the underlying mechanics and regularities of complex systems.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "probability".

Finally, he points out the practical bearing of the subject--for example, the probability of calculus causing sudden suppression of urine in such cases--and also the danger of surgical interference, and suggests the possibility of diagnosing the condition by ascertaining the absence of the opening of one ureter in the bladder by means of the cystoscope, and also the likelihood of its occurring where any abnormality of the genital organs is found, especially if this be unilateral.

The Internet and the news services were abuzz with speculation, and a few editorials were suggesting that maybe the Probability Assessment Unit had completed its job and needed to be scaled back.

But when the atoms come under the influence of the higher-level morphogenetic field of a molecule, these probabilities are modified in such a way that the probability of events leading toward the actualization of the final form are enhanced, while the probability of other events is diminished.

The first was not surprising, considering the fact that Imer was in jail with a strong probability of being adjudged mentally unbalanced.

The antecedent probability of such evidence coming into being is never so very small, because there are lots of other, natural, hypotheses that explain it.

If the antecedent probability that a result is due to anything else than chance is very, very low, then even enormously improbable results will not overturn it.

One of these is the probability of the aortal tissues pressing upon the weapon relaxing their hold and allowing the blade to slip.

In all probability there was, according to the usual plan of Norman churches, a tower at the junction of the nave and transepts, and beyond this an apsidal choir.

In all probability I should have immediately left for Paris, but for a circumstance which astonished nobody but myself in the family of which I had become a member.

They would be recorded, in all probability, in the Avifauna Journal - a small publication of limited circulation which went to keen students of bird life.

Her beplumed hat floated in a pool of disfiguring water, her long suede gloves lay in a ditch and her white satin wedding slippers, alas, hung by their tiny heels at the top of a tree in a neighboring township, the only tree in the entire surrounding county, put there, in all probability, to catch and hold them for her.

Well, the medical evidence showed that there was nothing to rule out the probability of suicide, and although the pathologist thought the wound was too deep to have been self-inflicted, the coroner told the jury to disregard that and the inquest will be resumed on those lines, especially as the pathologist himself could find no rational significance in the depth of the wound and was forced to agree that if Bosey had fallen on the knife, that would explain matters.

This diplomatist came into the room with her, and after hearing all the details from my lips he said that in all probability the duke knew nothing about it.

That idea made me feel the deepest shame, yet, whenever I thought of it, I could not help admitting that such a supposition, however false, was not wanting in probability.

Only if the probability was very low that prospective tax cuts or new outlay initiatives would send the on-budget accounts into deficit, would unconditional initiatives appear prudent.