outlier

noun

out·​li·​er ˈau̇t-ˌlī(-ə)r 

1

: a person whose residence and place of business are at a distance

His house was a place of refuge for outliers.

2

: something (such as a geologic feature) that is situated away from or classed differently from a main or related body

The island is an outlier on the southeast side of the archipelago.

3

a

: a statistical observation that is markedly different in value from the others of the sample

Values that are outliers give disproportionate weight to larger over smaller values.

b

: a person or thing that is atypical within a particular group, class, or category

She was an outlier when she launched her cruelty-free, sustainably minded brand in 2001, but has found the centre of gravity shifting in her direction.

—Jess Cartner-Morley

Among the world's wealthy nations, the United States is an outlier on this issue: Americans have the lowest national minimum wage, relative to the median wage, of any of the wealthy nations represented in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

—Christopher Ingraham

Examples of outlier in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Michigan is one of two states without public records laws that cover the state legislature and governor's office, and Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks, D-Grand Rapids, would like to end Michigan's status as a national outlier. —Clara Hendrickson, Detroit Free Press, 5 Dec. 2024

South Korea’s markets were the outlier on Monday, after preliminary trade data revealed exports grew at their slowest pace since September 2023 over the weekend. —Lim Hui Jie, CNBC, 1 Dec. 2024

The Cowboys have played away from home twice, in 1975 and 1977, but those games were outliers. —Yaakov Katz, Newsweek, 28 Nov. 2024

But there’s also much to be learned by studying outliers that receive less attention, such as the squirting cucumber, Hay said. —Mindy Weisberger, CNN, 27 Nov. 2024

Word History

First Known Use

1606, in the meaning defined at sense 3b