reliabilityn.
/rᵻˌlʌɪəˈbɪlᵻti/, U.S. /rəˌlaɪəˈbɪlᵻdi/, /riˌlaɪəˈbɪlᵻdi/ 1. The quality or fact of being reliable.
a. Ability to be relied on with confidence; trustworthiness, sureness, reliableness.
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society > morality > duty or obligation > recognition of duty > faithfulness or trustworthiness > [noun]
truthOE
trotha1225
truefastnessa1225
trueshipa1225
trueness?c1225
soothnessc1275
faithc1300
good faithc1300
trustc1300
trueheadc1325
traistnessa1340
truthheada1400
faithfulnessc1400
loyaltyc1400
tristiness1408
trustinessc1450
confiance1490
fealty?1515
surety?c1535
loyalness1592
troth-keeping1605
true-heartedness1608
confidence1642
trustworthiness1662
responsibleness1706
dependence1752
reliability1810
trustihood1823
faithworthiness1828
reliableness1841
dependableness1860
dependability1901
the mind > mental capacity > belief > belief, trust, confidence > [noun] > reliance > justification for
reliability1810
reliableness1841
the mind > mental capacity > belief > uncertainty, doubt, hesitation > absence of doubt, confidence > assured fact, certainty > reliability > [noun]
sureness1589
unfailableness1624
unfailingnessa1656
undoubtedness1691
reliability1810
reliableness1841
1810 S. T. Coleridge Notebks. (1973) III. 4006 The want of reliability in little things, the infliction of little pains, the trifling with hope.
1817 S. T. Coleridge Biogr. Lit. (Bohn) iii. 33 Perfect consistency, and (if such a word might be framed) absolute reliability.
1856 ‘G. Eliot’ in Westm. Rev. Jan. 24 An air of seriousness and reliability.
1861 Amer. Agriculturist July 198/3 Detecting Poisonous Mushrooms.—Mrs. C. H. Vail, states that mushrooms may be tested by stirring them with a silver-spoon... We can not vouch for the reliability of the test.
1887 Spectator 18 June 827/2 We want doctors to bear a stamp of reliability, like the coinage.
1920 P. J. Fryer Insect Pests & Fungus Dis. Fruit & Hops Pref. p. v The reader may therefore have confidence in the accuracy and reliability of these sections of the book.
1998 P. Williams Gangland (1999) 82 The problem about dealing with an informant is the reliability of the information he has to offer.
2005 New Republic 4 July 28/3 Her hair-raising confidence in the reliability of repressed memory.
b. Originally U.S. The ability of a product, etc., to perform in a required manner, or produce a desired result consistently.
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1880 Times 5 Jan. 9/6 The steadiness, reliability, and non-fusibility of the carbon filament, Mr. Edison tells us, are not the only elements incident to the new discovery.
1915 Sat. Evening Post 3 Apr. 62/2 The reliability of the machine was so amazing that, in seven years of business, not a single breakdown had been reported.
1958 Computer Jrnl. 1 105/2 Much depends on the intrinsic reliability achieved by the next generation of very fast digital computers.
1971 Sci. News Let. 19 June 416 The general question of the reliability of unmanned spacecraft has always been a thorny problem for NASA.
2006 V. Smil Transforming 20th Cent. v. 204 Frivolous styling was considered more important than safety and reliability. By the mid-1960s ‘overpowered..and underbraked cars were traveling at faster speeds on the highways’.
2. Statistics. The degree to which repeated measurements of the same subject under identical conditions yield consistent results. coefficient of reliability n. = reliability coefficient n. at Compounds 2.
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the world > relative properties > number > probability or statistics > [noun] > ability to yield correct or concordant result
robustness?1533
precision1876
reliability1909
1909 C. S. Myers Text-bk. Exper. Psychol. x. 123 The reliability of a single observation must be tested by several repetitions of the experiment under conditions as precisely constant as possible.
1910 G. M. Whipple Man. Mental & Physical Tests iii. 42 These last two mentioned correlations, taken singly, afford an obvious coefficient of reliability of the two series of measurements.
1925 F. C. Mills Statist. Methods xvi. 561 By the study of successive samples..much more may be learned as to the reliability of a given measure.
1960 F. Land Lang. Math. xiv. 253 A correlation less than 0·9 between the two performances of the same test would indicate that its reliability was below the acceptable level.
1988 R. E. Gordon et al. Introd. Psychiatric Res. viii. 180 The mental health professionals obtained coefficients of reliability ranging from .83 to .86 for all six scales.
2004 P. R. Hinton Statistics Explained (ed. 2) xxii. 302 All we need to do is to give the test twice and correlate the findings. A high correlation indicates a high level of reliability.
Compounds
C1. General attributive.
reliability analysis n.
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1943 R. Lippitt & R. K. White in R. G. Barker et al. Child Behaviour & Devel. xxviii. 490 The investigators independently coded the conversation records into the 23 categories with a per cent of agreement of .86 for the 3,000 units of conversation involved in this reliability analysis.
2007 Amer. Jrnl. Polit. Sci. 51 211 Testing for internal consistency with factor or reliability analysis is not appropriate.
reliability estimate n.
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1932 C. C. Brigham Study of Error vi. 196 Reliability estimates obtained by correlating odd and even-membered items of this test using the Spearman-Brown formula (2r/1+r) have rather consistently been around .94.
2004 Rev. Educ. Res. 74 224 This procedure is used to demonstrate reliability and to compute an intercoder reliability estimate.
reliability race n.
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1905 Automobile 30 Nov. 617/1 The Reliability Race recently run between Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, was won by a Mercedes car fitted with Continental tires.
1987 Post-Standard (Syracuse, N.Y.) (Nexis) 1 May d7 The long-distance cyclists with headquarters in Paris, France, completed their 200-kilometer reliability race.
2004 Jrnl. Business Venturing (Nexis) May Reliability races were..a subtle way for [automobile] clubs to enhance quality by fostering competition among car makers.
reliability score n.
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1910 Automobile 1 Sept. 382/2 Three silver loving cups are offered this year—one for economy, another for the best reliability score and the third prize is called the owner's cup.
2007 Polit. Res. Q. 60 105/1 Nonetheless, our intercoder reliability score was quite high (alpha = .878).
reliability standard n.
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1911 Med. Council Dec. p. xiv. (advt.) No thermometer failing to pass this ‘reliability standard’ ever goes on sale.
2004 Elem. School Jrnl. 104 416/1 An additional 10 data collectors attained the reliability standard of 80% within one scale point of the gold standard.
reliability study n.
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1934 Educ. Res. Bull. 13 195 The reliability of the test was next considered. As the percentage of preferences method is recommended, the reliability studies are based on that method.
2007 Grand Rapids (Mich.) Press (Nexis) 22 June b3 The state Department of Environmental Quality requires a reliability study every five years.
reliability test n.
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1902 Horseless Age 3 Sept. 239 The regulations which are to govern the ACA 500 mile reliability test.
1929 Evening News 18 Nov. 16/4 [He] crashed on his motor-cycle while taking part in a reliability test on Portsdown-hill.
1999 Fleet Owner (Nexis) Jan. We've run numerous reliability tests on the airbag at our Technical Center.
reliability trial n.
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1902 Car 3 Sept. 43/1 The cars entered for the Automobile Club's Reliability Trials which are being held this week began to arrive at the Crystal Palace at a very early hour.
1970 Which? July 199/1 We have not done any extended reliability trials on the single samples of television sets we tested.
2002 D. W. Gottlieb Environmental Technol. Resources Handbk. (2003) v. 47 The consortium is now conducting manufacturing and reliability trials for lead-free circuit board assemblies.
C2.
reliability coefficient n. Statistics any of various measures of statistical reliability; spec. the coefficient of correlation between two sets of measurements made of the same subject under identical conditions.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > number > probability or statistics > [noun] > ability to yield correct or concordant result > measure of
reliability coefficient1910
1910 C. Spearman in Brit. Jrnl. Psychol. 3 281 A very convenient conception is that of the ‘reliability coefficient’ of any system of measurements for any character. By this is meant the coefficient between one half and the other half of several measurements of the same thing.
1954 Psychol. Bulletin 51 229/1 The several types of reliability coefficient do not answer the same questions and should be carefully distinguished.
2008 D. Biber in T. Fontenelle Pract. Lexicogr. v. 74 Reliability coefficients were computed to assess the stability of frequency counts across the 1,000-word samples.
reliability engineer n. an engineer responsible for ensuring the reliability of a system or product.
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1952 Trans. IRE Professional Group Quality Control No. 1. 48 Most significant post for application engineering is the..‘Reliability Engineer’.
1969 Word Study Apr. 3/2 The reliability engineers..did not want to avoid taboo words; they were chiefly interested in alarming the program to potential failures.
2008 San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News (Nexis) 29 July For most guys, being a reliability engineer for Intel would be excitement enough—thrilling days of pondering gates, amplifiers and clock speeds.
reliability engineering n. the branch of engineering concerned with the reliability of systems or products; (also) engineering work of this kind.
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1953 Ammunition Shortages in Armed Services (Hearings before U.S. Senate Armed Services Comm., 83rd Congr., 1st Session) 688 Reliability engineering, inspection, proofing, acceptance and packaging of ammunition assigned to the Branch.
1974 Accounting Rev. 49 26/1 The mathematical technique used..is a simple stochastic model adapted from the field of reliability engineering.
2005 B. S. El-Haik Axiomatic Quality v. 86 Without the support of reliability engineering, it is impossible to build such sophisticated engineering wonders as space shuttles and nuclear power stations.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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