histogram

Etymology

Probably from Ancient Greek ἱστός (histós, “mast”) + -γραμμα (-gramma), although it is sometimes claimed to have been derived from historical + diagram; coined in 1891 by English mathematician Karl Pearson.

noun

1. (statistics) A graphical display of numerical data in the form of upright bars, with the area of each bar representing frequency.
   Such distinctions, however, require detailed information, such as histograms of the distribution of energy use among residential customers, both by month and by year. 1983, Alan Meier, Janice Wright, Arthur H. Rosenfeld, Supplying Energy Through Greater Efficiency: The Potential for Conservation, University of California Press, page 39
   The use of the piecewise linear frequency polygon (FP) in place of the underlying histogram would seem mainly a graphical advantage. 2005, D. W. Scott, S. R. Sain, “Multidimensional density estimation”, in C. R. Rao, E. J. Wegman, J. L. Solka, editors, Data Mining and Data Visualization, Elsevier, page 237
   A histogram is constructed by placing the variable of interest on the horizontal axis and the frequency, relative frequency or percent frequency on the vertical axis.[…]Histograms for data found in applications are never perfectly symmetric, but the histogram for many applications may be roughly symmetric. 2017, David R. Anderson, Dennis J. Sweeney, Thomas A. Williams, Jeffrey D. Camm, James J. Cochran, Essentials of Statistics for Business and Economics, Cengage Learning, page 44

verb

1. (transitive) To represent (data) as a histogram.