keyness

English

Etymology

key +‎ -ness

Noun

keyness (uncountable)

1. (anthropology) The degree to which something is key, or important.
   • 1973, Sherry B. Ortner, “On Key Symbols”, in American Anthropology‎^[1], volume 75:

     The keyness of a summarizing symbol derives from the relative fundamentality (or ultimacy) of the meanings which it formulates, relative to other meanings of the system.

2. (computational linguistics) The statistical significance of a keyword's frequency in a given corpus, relative to a reference corpus.
   • 2005, Paul Baker, Public Discourse of Gay Men‎^[2], →ISBN, page 160:

     This was one of the weakest keywords that was found, with a keyness of 24.9.

Related terms

• low-keyness

See also

• Keynes