Word.ws English Dictionary

Bessel's correction

Bessel's correction proper noun: the use of n − 1 instead of n in the formula for the sample variance and sample standard deviation, where n is the number of observations in a sample. This corrects the bias in the estimation of the population variance and partially corrects the bias in the estimation of the population standard deviation, but often also increases the mean squared error in these estimations.

Proper noun

Bessel's correction

  1. The use of n − 1 instead of n in the formula for the sample variance and sample standard deviation, where n is the number of observations in a sample. This corrects the bias in the estimation of the population variance and partially corrects the bias in the estimation of the population standard deviation, but often also increases the mean squared error in these estimations.

Origin of Bessel's correction

Named after Friedrich Bessel.

Questions about Bessel's correction

What does Bessel's correction mean?
Bessel's correction means the use of n − 1 instead of n in the formula for the sample variance and sample standard deviation, where n is the number of observations in a sample. This corrects the bias in the estimation of the population variance and partially corrects the bias in the estimation of the population standard deviation, but often also increases the mean squared error in these estimations.
What part of speech is Bessel's correction?
Bessel's correction is a proper noun.

Words near Bessel's correction in the dictionary

  1. Bessel beams
  2. Bessel ellipsoid
  3. Bessel ellipsoids
  4. Bessel function
  5. Bessel functions
  6. Bessel's correction
  7. Besselian
  8. Besselian element
  9. Besselian elements
  10. Bessemer
  11. Bessemer converter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Bessel's correction (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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