Noun: spurious correlation
- (statistics) a correlation between two variables (e.g., between the number of electric motors in the home and grades at school) that does not result from any direct relation between them (buying electric motors will not raise grades) but from their relation to other variables
"The study found a spurious correlation between ice cream sales and drowning incidents, both actually caused by warmer weather"
Derived forms: spurious correlations
Type of: correlation, correlational statistics
Encyclopedia: Spurious correlation