Krige

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To estimate unknown values at unsampled locations by statistically interpolating from nearby measured points, as in mining or environmental surveys
2. Predicting values between known sample points across a region through weighted spatial averaging based on how the data vary with distance
3. Using the geostatistical technique of kriging to produce best-estimate maps of a quantity from scattered measurements taken at known positions

Etymology: Krige is a verb from mining science, and its history is a neat case of a person's name becoming a technical term. Georges Matheron, a French mathematician and geostatistician, was the first to use it, and he took it from the surname of Danie G. Krige, a South African mining engineer. Krige had worked out statistical methods for estimating the gold content of ore deposits from sparse drill samples, and Matheron built on that work to develop the theory of geostatistics. Matheron's coinage turned the surname into an action. To krige means to estimate values at unsampled locations by interpolating from nearby measurements, using the spatial correlation the method is built on. The verb carries the name of its inventor's predecessor into every calculation that uses the technique, so a geologist can say they krige a deposit in the same way a statistician might say they fit a model.

Synonyms: interpolate