Definition of the word outlier

The word "outlier" has its roots in the 17th-century English language. It originated from the Latin phrase "outlierus," which means "foreign or alien body." In the 14th century, the Latin term evolved into Old French as "outlier," meaning "foreigner" or "stranger." The word was later adopted into Middle English as "outlier," referring to a person who is not a part of a group or community. In statistics and data analysis, the term "outlier" has a slightly different meaning. It refers to a data point that is significantly different from other data points in a dataset, often due to an error, anomaly, or exceptional circumstance. The word "outlier" in this context may have been influenced by the original meaning of "outlier" as something that stands out from the rest.