method of least squares

1. 1.

   a method of fitting a curve to data points so as to minimize the sum of the squares of the distances of the points from the curve

   Synonymsleast squares

   Broaderstatistical method

   statistics

Questions about method of least squares

What does method of least squares mean?

method of least squares means "a method of fitting a curve to data points so as to minimize the sum of the squares of the distances of the points from the curve".

What is another word for method of least squares?

Close synonyms include least squares. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is method of least squares a common word?

method of least squares is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.