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significance|sɪgˈnɪfɪkəns|
[a. OF. significance, or ad. L. significantia, f. L. significāre to signify: cf. signifiance. Not frequent before the 19th cent., but cf. next.]
1. a. The meaning or import of something.
c1450Merlin ii. 39 Often axed Vortiger of Merlyn the significance of the two dragons. [Ibid. 40 significaunce.]
1649Milton Eikon. viii. 73 Empty sentences, that have the sound of gravity, but the significance of nothing pertinent. a1699Stillingfl. (J.), If he declares he intends it for the honour of another, he takes away by his words the significance of his action. 1825Coleridge Rem. (1836) II. 349 What the several significances of each must or may be according to the philosophic conception. 1851D. Wilson Preh. Ann. (1863) II. iv. ii. 225 The special significance of the symbols. 1871Ruskin Fors Clav. iii. 11 One great species of the British squire, under all the three significances of the name.
b. Without const.: Meaning; suggestiveness.
1814Scott Wav. xxxvii, She gave Waverley a parting smile and nod of significance. 1863Geo. Eliot Romola iii. xxiv, To one who is anxiously in search of a certain object the faintest suggestions have a peculiar significance. 1866G. Macdonald Ann. Q. Neighb. xxix. (1878) 501 She had looked at me strangely—that is, with some significance in her face.
2. Importance, consequence.
1725De Foe Voy. round World (1840) 15 Of such significance, that, for many years, it was counted a great exploit to pass this Strait. 1733P. Shaw tr. Bacon's De Sap. Vet. (1803) 77 All their endeavours, either of persuasion or force, are of little significance. 1841Myers Cath. Th. iii. §4. 12 Many of the statutes and ordinances..derive their chief significance from their reference to Egyptian rites and institutions. 1867Spencer First Princ. i. i. §4 (1875) 17 In the existence of a religious sentiment..we have a second evidence of great significance. 1875Jowett Plato (ed. 2) III. 155 The omission is not of any real significance.
3. Statistics. The level at or extent to which a result is statistically significant; freq. attrib., as significance level; significance test, a method used to calculate the significance of a result; hence significance testing vbl. n.
1888J. Venn Logic of Chance (ed. 3) xix. 486 As before, common sense would feel little doubt that such a difference was significant, but it could give no numerical estimate of the significance. 1907Biometrika V. 183 Let it be reasonable to suppose a quantity significant when it is β times its standard deviation, or β/·67449 times its probable error, then we have for significance test: m - M > [etc.]. Several other cases of probable error tests of significance deserve reconsideration. 1947Ibid. XLVII. 139 The problem of testing the significance of difference between two proportions..receives early attention in textbooks on mathematical statistics. Ibid., Such a difference in levels of significance in the solution of an everyday problem is obviously puzzling. 1960Amer. Sociol. Rev. XXV. 202/2 In the test of this hypothesis a Chi-square of 34·34 was obtained, considerably lower than Chi-square at the ten per cent significance level for 34 degrees of freedom. 1970Nature 25 July 384/2 Calculations of significance are based on the significance of the difference between paired observations using Student's t test. 1972A. W. F. Edwards Likelihood i. 2 The rejection of the theory led to the flowering of alternative methods of inference, particularly significance-testing and estimation, to which we are heirs today. 1977P. Johnson Enemies of Society xi. 157 In psychology, for example, it is notorious that ‘results’ used to confirm hypotheses are often no better than random data because significance tests would validate almost anything. |