outlier

noun

out·li·er | \ ˈau̇t-ˌlī(-ə)r

Definition of outlier

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.

3a : 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 Fox is something of an outlier among its fellow broadcasters, Nielsen data from the last two seasons show. — Rick Porter, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 May 2022 Companies often go private after being bought by private equity firms or other investment groups, making Elon Musk’s takeover bid as an individual somewhat of an outlier. — Tristan Bove, Fortune, 16 Apr. 2022 My negative review of Hulu's bouncy-bleak recreation of the Theranos fraud was a bit of an outlier when the show premiered. — Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 1 Apr. 2022 The support for Moscow makes Serbia somewhat of an outlier in Europe. — Dusan Stojanovic, ajc, 1 Apr. 2022 The support for Moscow makes Serbia somewhat of an outlier in Europe. — Dusan Stojanovic, chicagotribune.com, 1 Apr. 2022 Was Wiggins’ memorable first two-thirds of the season a bit of an outlier? — Connor Letourneau, San Francisco Chronicle, 31 Mar. 2022 Congresswoman Liz Cheney has become something of an outlier in this version of the Republican Party. — NBC News, 20 Mar. 2022 But even on the national level, Texas does not seem to be that much of an outlier. — Harry Enten, CNN, 5 Mar. 2022 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'outlier.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.