light-tailedness
|laɪt-teɪld-nəs|
/ˌlaɪtˈteɪldnəs/
(light-tailed)
thin / not-heavy tail
Etymology
'light-tailedness' originates from Modern English by compounding the adjective 'light-tailed' (itself from 'light' + 'tailed') with the nominalizing suffix '-ness'. 'light' traces back to Old English 'līht' meaning 'not heavy' or 'of little weight', and 'tail' traces back to Old English 'tægl' (or related Germanic roots) meaning 'hind appendage'.
'light-tailedness' is a relatively modern technical formation used in probability and statistics, formed by adding the abstract noun suffix '-ness' to the compound adjective 'light-tailed'. The components 'light' and 'tail' evolved from Old English elements and combined in Modern English to describe tail heaviness; the noun form emerged in 20th-century statistical terminology.
Initially, 'light' meant 'not heavy' and 'tail' meant 'rear appendage'; in modern technical usage the compound focuses on the rate at which distribution tails decay, so the term now means 'having relatively thin or rapidly decaying tails' in the context of probability distributions.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
the property of a probability distribution whose tail probabilities decay relatively quickly (typically exponentially or faster), so extreme values are unlikely compared with heavy-tailed distributions.
Light-tailedness is often assumed in classical statistical models to justify finite variance and rapid convergence.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Last updated: 2025/10/18 17:10