Star on GitHub — community-maintained pronunciation dictionary

How to pronounce kurtosis

cs-term community-consensus

ker TOH sis /kɚˈtoʊsɪs/ mp3

kurtosis is most commonly pronounced "ker TOH sis" (/kɚˈtoʊsɪs/). This is the widely-used reading among engineers, though edge cases exist.

Statistics term for the 'tailedness' of a distribution, from Greek κυρτός (kurtos, 'curved/arching'); coined by Karl Pearson c.1905. Wiktionary GenAm /kɚˈtoʊsɪs/ — primary stress on the second/middle syllable -TOH-, with a long 'oh'. Data scientists frequently flatten it to KUR-toh-sis (stress on first) or say ker-TAH-sis / ker-TOSS-is with a short 'o'. The leading 'ku-' is a plain 'ker-' schwa+r, not 'koor-'. Pairs with 'skewness' in every pandas .describe() conversation, so it's said often and missed often.

Source: Wiktionary § kurtosis (GenAm /kɚˈtoʊsɪs/)

Pronouncing project and product names correctly avoids the small but persistent friction of being gently corrected during standups, conference Q&As, and team calls. Hearing the word a few times locks in the right reading better than reading IPA ever will. Pronounce is a community-maintained dictionary — every entry tagged with a confidence level and (where possible) a citable source.

How do you pronounce kurtosis?

kurtosis is pronounced "ker TOH sis" (/kɚˈtoʊsɪs/). Statistics term for the 'tailedness' of a distribution, from Greek κυρτός (kurtos, 'curved/arching'); coined by Karl Pearson c.1905. Wiktionary GenAm /kɚˈtoʊsɪs/ — primary stress on the second/middle syllable -TOH-, with a long 'oh'. Data scientists frequently flatten it to KUR-toh-sis (stress on first) or say ker-TAH-sis / ker-TOSS-is with a short 'o'. The leading 'ku-' is a plain 'ker-' schwa+r, not 'koor-'. Pairs with 'skewness' in every pandas .describe() conversation, so it's said often and missed often. Source: Wiktionary § kurtosis (GenAm /kɚˈtoʊsɪs/).

What is the IPA for kurtosis?

The IPA for kurtosis is /kɚˈtoʊsɪs/, respelled "ker TOH sis".

Hear it from the command line

$ say-it kurtosis # primary × 3 + audible "or: …" for each alternate
$ say-it --why kurtosis # print the dict entry with source URL

Install the CLI: git clone https://github.com/anzy-renlab-ai/pronounce.git && cd pronounce && ./install.sh

Share this

Help one more dev stop saying "kurtosis" wrong.

⭐ Star the project

This whole page exists because of a community-maintained TSV. If it saved you a cringey moment, drop a star.

Star on GitHub GitHub stars
Star on GitHub