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statistic

/stəˈtɪstɪk//stəˈtɪstɪk/·noun
a single numerical fact or measure drawn from a larger body of data
Fig. 1 — On a dark panel, bar after bar climbs from the baseline, left to right, until a whole lopsided spread is standing there — a crowd of readings, no single one of them saying much on its own.
01Definition

A statistic is one number distilled from many — an average, a percentage, a count — that stands in for a whole mass of measurements. The word shares its root with 'state', since such figures were first gathered to describe nations: their populations, harvests, and taxes. A single statistic can clarify or mislead, which is why careful readers ask how it was collected before they let it settle an argument. The plural, statistics, also names the entire discipline of analysing such data.

02In use
  • iA well-chosen statistic can reveal a discrepancy that pages of description would hide.
  • iiResearchers used the figure to infer a broader trend across the whole population.
  • iiiOne striking statistic — that traffic had doubled in a decade — anchored her entire essay.
03Collocations
  • a key statistic
  • official statistics
  • a damning statistic
  • according to the statistics
  • statistical evidence

Family statistics (noun) · statistical (adjective) · statistically (adverb) · statistician (noun)

04Relations

=figure, number, datum, measure, metric

≠anecdote, conjecture

05Compared
PairThe difference
statistic vs figurea bare number → figure; a number with data behind it → statistic (every statistic is a figure, not the reverse).
statistic vs parameterdescribes the whole population, fixed but usually unmeasurable → parameter; computed from a sample, varies from sample to sample → statistic.
06TOEFL & IELTS

Invaluable for evidence-based Writing: 'according to recent statistics', 'official statistics show' lend authority to Task 2 arguments. Watch the grammar — one statistic (countable singular), but statistics is also an uncountable field of study ('statistics is taught here'). In TOEFL lectures, a single statistic often signals the speaker's key point, so it is worth noting when one is read aloud.

07Asked
What is the singular of 'statistics'?
A statistic — one figure — is the singular; statistics is the plural for several such figures. But there is a twist: statistics is also the name of the field, and that sense is singular ('statistics is a demanding subject'). So the same -s word takes a plural verb as data ('the statistics are alarming') and a singular verb as a discipline. Number follows meaning, not the ending.
Is 'statistics' singular or plural?
Both, depending on which statistics you mean. As a set of figures it is plural: these statistics are misleading. As the branch of mathematics it is singular: statistics is taught in the second year. The same split runs through economics and politics — the field takes a singular verb, the plural facts a plural one. Read the sense, then choose is or are.
What does 'just a statistic' mean?
To become just a statistic is to be reduced to a number in a total, your individual story lost in the count — the phrase protests exactly that flattening: 'to the system he was just a statistic'. It trades on the word's nature, one figure standing in for many, and turns it into a complaint about losing the human behind the number.
What is the difference between a statistic and data?
Data is the raw material — all the individual measurements collected; a statistic is a single number distilled from them, like an average or a percentage. The scene above stages the relationship: a whole spread of bars settles, and one glowing figure is drawn out to speak for them all. Data is the crowd of readings; a statistic is the one you quote.
What is the difference between statistics and statistical?
Statistics is the noun — the figures or the field; statistical is the adjective that describes anything relating to them: statistical evidence, a statistical model, statistically significant. In writing, statistical does the work of attaching the authority of numbers to another noun. Keep the parts of speech straight: you cite statistics, but you make a statistical argument.