Statistical Significance
Etymology
“Significance” is from Latin “significare” (to signify), from signum (sign) plus facere (to make). Ronald Fisher popularized “significant” as a technical statistical term in the 1920s, a usage that has drifted far from the everyday meaning of “meaningful.”
noun phrase · /stuh-TIS-tih-kuhl sig-NIF-ih-kuhns/
A finding unlikely to have arisen by chance alone, judged against a chosen threshold.
What it names
It separates “probably real” from “could easily be luck” — while being routinely mistaken for “important.”
Example
A drug can show a statistically significant benefit that is medically trivial — real, but too small to matter to any patient.
Related idea
Statistical significance is not practical importance and is not certainty; it rests on the p-value and a large sample size can make even a negligible effect “significant.”