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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Probability \Prob'a*bil"i*ty\, noun; 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}, noun, 5.
Syn: Likeliness; credibleness; likelihood; chance.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
probability
noun
1: 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}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
187 Moby Thesaurus words for "probability": a thing for, accidentality, actuarial calculation, actuarial prediction, adventitiousness, affinity, aftertime, afteryears, anticipation, apocalypse, aptitude, aptness, bare possibility, bent, best bet, bias, break, by-and-by, cast, casualness, certainty, chance, chances, conatus, conceivability, conceivableness, conduciveness, confidence, contemplation, contingency, course ahead, crystal ball, delight, destiny, determinism, diathesis, disposition, distant future, eagerness, even chance, eventuality, expectancy, expectation, fate, favorable prospect, feeling for, flukiness, foreboding, forecast, forecasting, foreshowing, foresight, foretelling, fortuitousness, fortuity, fortune, forward look, future, future tense, futurism, futurity, gamble, good chance, good fortune, good luck, good opportunity, good possibility, guesswork, hap, happenstance, happy chance, heedless hap, hereafter, hope, how they fall, immediate future, immediate prospect, imminence, improbability, inclination, indeterminacy, indeterminateness, law of averages, leaning, liability, liableness, likelihood, likeliness, liking, lot, luck, main chance, moira, near future, obligation, odds, odds-on, odds-on chance, off chance, offing, omen, opportunity, outlook, outside chance, outside hope, penchant, possibility, possibleness, posteriority, potential, potentiality, prediction, predilection, predisposition, prefiguration, prefigurement, prefiguring, prejudice, presage, presaging, presentiment, preshowing, presignifying, presumption, principle of indeterminacy, problematicness, proclivity, prognosis, prognostication, project, promise, proneness, propensity, prophecy, prophesying, prospect, prospectus, random sample, readiness, reliance, remote possibility, risk, run of luck, sensitivity to, serendipity, small hope, soft spot, soothsay, speculation, sporting chance, statistical prediction, statistical probability, sure bet, sure thing, susceptibility, tendency, the attainable, the breaks, the feasible, the future, the morrow, the possible, the sweet by-and-by, theory of probability, thinkability, thinkableness, thought, time ahead, time just ahead, time to come, tomorrow, tropism, turn, twist, unastonishment, uncertainty, uncertainty principle, vaticination, virtuality, warp, weakness, well-grounded hope, what is possible, what may be, what might be, whatever comes, willingness
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Definitions retrieved from local copies of the freely distributed DICT client/server software and databases. Click here for database copyright information. - KM |