Poisson distribution: Meaning and Definition of

Pois•son' distribu"tion

Pronunciation: (pwä-sōn' Fr. pwa-sôn'), [key]
— Statistics. Statistics.
  1. a limiting form of the binomial probability distribution for small values of the probability of success and for large numbers of trials: particularly useful in industrial quality-control work and in radiation and bacteriological problems.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.