distribution

Etymology

From Old French, from Latin distributio, from distribuere 'to distribute', itself from dis- 'apart' + tribuere 'to' (from tribus).

noun

1. An act of distributing or state of being distributed.
2. An apportionment by law (of funds, property).
3. (business, marketing) The process by which goods get to final consumers over a geographical market, including storing, selling, shipping and advertising.
4. Anything distributed; portion; share.
   December 6, 1709, Francis Atterbury, a sermon preach'd before the sons of the clergy at their anniversary-meeting in the Church of St. Paul our charitable distributions
5. The result of distributing; arrangement.
6. The total number of something sold or delivered to the clients.
   The distribution of my little rock magazine is about 3,000.
7. The frequency of occurrence or extent of existence.
8. (economics) The apportionment of income or wealth in a population.
   The wealth distribution became extremely skewed in the kleptocracy.
9. (card games) The way in which a player's hand is divided in suits, or in which a particular suit is divided between the players.
   The declarer had 3-6-2-2 distribution.
10. (mathematics, statistics) A probability distribution; the set of relative likelihoods that a variable will have a value in a given interval.
11. (mathematics, differential geometry) A subset of the tangent bundle of a manifold that satisfies certain properties; used to construct the notions of integrability and foliation of a manifold.
12. (software) A set of bundled software components.
    a Linux distribution
13. (finance) The process or result of the sale of securities, especially their placement among investors with long-term investment strategies.
14. (logic) The resolution of a whole into its parts.
15. (printing, historical) The process of sorting the types and placing them in their proper boxes in the cases.
16. (steam engines) The steps or operations by which steam is supplied to and withdrawn from the cylinder at each stroke of the piston: admission, suppression or cutting off, release or exhaust, and compression of exhaust steam prior to the next admission.
17. (rhetoric) A rhetorical technique in which a subject is divided into multiple cases based on some property or properties, and each case is addressed individually.
    It is alſo called a diſtribucion, when we diuide the whole, into ſeuerall partes, and ſaie we haue foure poynctes, whereof we purpoſe to ſpeake, compꝛehendyng our whole talke within compaſſe of theſame. 1553, Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique (1962), book iii, folio 99, page 209 s.v. “Diſtribucion”
    Diſtribution, in Rhetoric, a Kind of Deſcription; or a Figure, whereby an orderly Diviſion, and Enumeration is made of the principal Qualities of a Subject. 1728, Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopædia I, page 230/2 s.v. “Diſtribution²”