covary

English

Etymology

From co- +‎ vary.

Verb

covary (third-person singular simple present covaries, present participle covarying, simple past and past participle covaried)

1. (statistics) To vary together with another variable, particularly in a way that may be predictive
   • 2007 July 18, Thomas Satting, “Identity in 4D”, in Philosophical Studies, volume 140, number 2, →DOI:

     More specifically, to say that there is an informative criterion of diachronic identity is to say that facts of diachronic identity covary with facts about continuants’ instantaneous qualitative profiles […] .

   • 2009, C. James Goodwin, Research In Psychology: Methods and Design‎^[1], John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 175:

     The participants certainly differ in how their practice is distributed (1, 2, or 3 days), but they also differ in how much total practice they get (3, 6, or 9 hours). This is a perfect example of a confound—it is impossible to tell if the results are due to one factor (distribution of practice) or the other (total practice hours); the two factors covary perfectly.

Related terms

• covariable
• covariance
• covariate

Translations

vary together

• Finnish: kovarioida