Probit

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Characterized by integrity and high moral standards, typically in a professional or academic context
2. denoting a quality of honesty and adherence to ethical principles
3. exemplifying uprightness and trustworthiness in one’s actions and decisions

Etymology: Chester Ittner Bliss, an American statistician working on insecticide testing, needed a name for a unit he had devised in 1934. In a paper titled "The method of probits," published in the journal Science, he wrote that these "arbitrary probability units" had been termed "probits." The word is a blend of "probability" and "unit," so it names a standardized unit of probability rather than a single event or quantity. The idea behind the unit was practical. Bliss measured how many insects died at different doses of a poison, and the resulting S-shaped curve was hard to analyse directly. By converting each percentage of deaths into a probit value, the curve became a straight line, which could be fitted with ordinary regression methods. That is why the term came to name a whole statistical regression model, not just the unit itself.

Synonyms: probit analysis, probability unit