How to Use probability distribution in a Sentence

probability distribution

noun
  • What if the probability distribution of letters is biased, so some letters are more likely than others?
    — Quanta Magazine, 19 Nov. 2015
  • And in this case, there is simply no way to get that probability distribution using a classical computer.
    — John Timmer, Ars Technica, 24 Sep. 2019
  • That means that many of its properties aren’t exactly determined, but rather have a probability distribution to them.
    — Ethan Siegel, Forbes, 25 Feb. 2021
  • But, that extinction event exhibits a probability distribution, and is not inevitable at a specific time.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 11 Mar. 2011
  • These take the form of a probability distribution related to the different choices.
    — Steve Nadis, Quanta Magazine, 9 May 2024
  • The output of our models is the joint probability distribution of these parameters.
    — Josh Goldman, IEEE Spectrum, 29 Apr. 2023
  • The formalism predicts a very definite probability distribution for all of these other questions.
    — Sean Carroll, Discover Magazine, 16 Nov. 2011
  • Simkin and Roychowdhury account for this by using a probability distribution.
    — The Physics Arxiv Blog, Discover Magazine, 24 Sep. 2021
  • For example, to solve the moment problem for a probability distribution over groups, each moment would be associated with a group G.
    — Leila Sloman, Quanta Magazine, 12 Jan. 2023
  • The particular probability distribution being used must be chosen with care.
    — Quanta Magazine, 10 Dec. 2012
  • But once confronted with the probability distribution for survival, the human spirit may choose to defy all odds and behave as a statistical outlier.
    — Avi Loeb, Scientific American, 12 May 2021
  • No conventional graph of probability distribution would have predicted that crash.
    — Alan Greenspan, Foreign Affairs, 15 Oct. 2013
  • Namely, that the probability distribution for all possible answers was uniform.
    — Gabriel A. Silva, Forbes, 8 Sep. 2021
  • Sampling from a random circuit means repeating such measurements many times to build up a picture of the probability distribution underlying the outcomes.
    — Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 9 Jan. 2023
  • Sycamore calculated the probability distribution by sampling the circuit—running it one million times and measuring the observed output strings.
    — Elizabeth Gibney, Scientific American, 23 Oct. 2019
  • Now, given the same sentence, the LLM will calculate a better probability distribution and its loss will be slightly lower.
    — Quanta Magazine, 22 Jan. 2024
  • Quantum information is encoded in the probability distribution of qubit states.
    — IEEE Spectrum, 15 Sep. 2021
  • Remarkably, in many cases the algorithm could both predict the onset of tipping and provide a probability distribution of possible post-tipping-point behaviors.
    — Ben Brubaker, Quanta Magazine, 15 Sep. 2022
  • Instead, the possible results of measuring its position are given by a probability distribution.
    — Quanta Magazine, 28 Feb. 2017
  • But if gravity is quantum in nature, the cloud of atoms could change from its initial classical-like probability distribution to a quantum-like probability distribution.
    — Jeremy Hsu, IEEE Spectrum, 31 Mar. 2021
  • Lopes Lara emphasizes the usefulness of the probability distribution data Kalshi collects on the world’s most significant events.
    — Emma Hinchliffe, Fortune, 9 Apr. 2026
  • Many rely on assumptions about how specific AI models generate text, or on access to those models’ probability distributions.
    — Ambuj Tewari, The Conversation, 18 Dec. 2025
  • Many rely on assumptions about how specific AI models generate text, or on access to those models’ probability distributions.
    — Ambuj Tewari, Fortune, 22 Dec. 2025
  • This type of tool helps developers understand the behavior of qubits by visualizing quantum states such as wavefunctions or probability distributions.
    — Margarita Simonova, Forbes, 18 Mar. 2025
  • In the ‘pick-a-number between one and ten’ game there was actually an implicit assumption about the probability of each message occurring - about the probability distribution of the message space.
    — Gabriel A. Silva, Forbes, 8 Sep. 2021
  • In stark contrast, actuaries use probability distributions that account for high-risk, low-probability events such as extreme weather, supply chain disruptions, and mass migration.
    — Ingmar Rentzhog, Forbes, 28 Feb. 2025
  • Used in cases where there are many different possible outcomes, a Monte Carlo simulation builds up a picture of the probability distribution of the possible scenarios.
    — Jeremy Kahn, Fortune, 22 Sep. 2021
  • Nonequilibrium thermodynamics describes the probability distribution at each step in the diffusion process.
    — Anil Ananthaswamy, Quanta Magazine, 5 Jan. 2023
  • As the Princeton computer scientist Arvind Narayanan pointed out, at its heart was the use of argmax, a mathematical function that selects the most likely output from a probability distribution.
    — Hari Kunzru, Harper's Magazine, 26 Oct. 2021
  • At its core, GPT is constantly generating a probability distribution over the next token to generate, conditional on the string of previous tokens.
    — Lance Eliot, Forbes, 18 Dec. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'probability distribution.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: