COEFFICIENT

Pronunciation (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does coefficient mean? 

• COEFFICIENT (noun)
  The noun COEFFICIENT has 1 sense:

1. a constant number that serves as a measure of some property or characteristic

  Familiarity information: COEFFICIENT used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• COEFFICIENT (noun)

Meaning:

A constant number that serves as a measure of some property or characteristic

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Hypernyms ("coefficient" is a kind of...):

constant (a number representing a quantity assumed to have a fixed value in a specified mathematical context)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "coefficient"):

absorptance; absorption coefficient; coefficient of absorption (a measure of the rate of decrease in the intensity of electromagnetic radiation (as light) as it passes through a given substance; the fraction of incident radiant energy absorbed per unit mass or thickness of an absorber)

absolute viscosity; coefficient of viscosity; dynamic viscosity (a measure of the resistance to flow of a fluid under an applied force)

transmission; transmittance (the fraction of radiant energy that passes through a substance)

coefficient of reflection; reflectance; reflection factor; reflectivity (the fraction of radiant energy that is reflected from a surface)

coefficient of expansion; expansivity (the fractional change in length or area or volume per unit change in temperature at a given constant pressure)

modulus ((physics) a coefficient that expresses how much of a specified property is possessed by a specified substance)

coefficient of self induction; self-inductance (the ratio of the electromotive force produced in a circuit by self-induction to the rate of change of current producing it, expressed in henries)

coefficient of mutual induction; mutual inductance (a measure of the induction between two circuits; the ratio of the electromotive force in a circuit to the corresponding change of current in a neighboring circuit; usually measured in henries)

coefficient of friction (the ratio of the weight of an object being moved along a surface and the force that maintains contact between the object and the surface)

coefficient of drag; drag coefficient (the ratio of the drag on a body moving through air to the product of the velocity and the surface area of the body)

weight; weighting ((statistics) a coefficient assigned to elements of a frequency distribution in order to represent their relative importance)