# distribution
## English
### Alternative forms

* distribucion (obsolete)

### Etymology

From Old French, from Latin distributio, from distribuere 'to distribute', itself from dis- 'apart' + tribuere 'to' (from tribus).

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /ˌdɪstɹəˈbjuːʃən/
* Audio (US):(file)

### Noun

distribution (countable and uncountable, plural distributions)
* An act of distributing or state of being distributed.
* An apportionment by law (of funds, property).
* (business, marketing) The process by which goods get to final consumers over a geographical market, including storing, selling, shipping and advertising.
* Anything distributed; portion; share.
** December 6, 1709, Francis Atterbury, a sermon preach'd before the sons of the clergy at their anniversary-meeting in the Church of St. Paul
    our charitable distributions
* The result of distributing; arrangement.
** 2015 September 11, “Hotspots of Malaria Transmission in the Peruvian Amazon: Rapid Assessment through a Parasitological and Serological Survey”, in PLOS ONE‎, →DOI:The criterion for positivity was determined for each antigen of each species applying a mixture model to the PP data which assumed two inherent Gaussian distributions: a narrow distribution or seronegatives, and a broader distribution of seropositives.
** 2015 December 11, “On the Role of Histamine Receptors in the Regulation of Circadian Rhythms”, in PLOS ONE‎, →DOI:Similarly, the brain-penetrating Hrh2 antagonist zolantidine had no effect on light-induced phase shift as shown for hamsters, or the lengths or distributions of NREM, REM and wakefulness states as shown on rats.
* The total number of something sold or delivered to the clients.
    The distribution of my little rock magazine is about 3,000.
* The frequency of occurrence or extent of existence.
* (economics) The apportionment of income or wealth in a population.
    The wealth distribution became extremely skewed in the kleptocracy.
* (card games) The way in which a player's hand is divided in suits, or in which a particular suit is divided between the players.
    The declarer had 3-6-2-2 distribution.
* (mathematics, statistics) A probability distribution; the set of relative likelihoods that a variable will have a value in a given interval.
* (mathematics, differential geometry) A subset of the tangent bundle of a manifold that satisfies certain properties; used to construct the notions of integrability and foliation of a manifold.
* (software) A set of bundled software components.
    Synonym: distro
    a Linux distribution
* (finance) The process or result of the sale of securities, especially their placement among investors with long-term investment strategies.
* (logic) The resolution of a whole into its parts.
* (printing, historical) The process of sorting the types and placing them in their proper boxes in the cases.
* (steam engines) The steps or operations by which steam is supplied to and withdrawn from the cylinder at each stroke of the piston: admission, suppression or cutting off, release or exhaust, and compression of exhaust steam prior to the next admission.
* (rhetoric) A rhetorical technique in which a subject is divided into multiple cases based on some property or properties, and each case is addressed individually.
** 1553, Thomas Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique (1962), book iii, folio 99, page 209 s.v. “Diſtribucion”:
    It is alſo called a diſtribucion, when we diuide the whole, into ſeuerall partes, and ſaie we haue foure poynctes, whereof we purpoſe to ſpeake, compꝛehendyng our whole talke within compaſſe of theſame.
** 1728, Ephraim Chambers, Cyclopædia I, page 230/2 s.v. “Diſtribution²”:
    Diſtribution, in Rhetoric, a Kind of Deſcription; or a Figure, whereby an orderly Diviſion, and Enumeration is made of the principal Qualities of a Subject.

#### Derived terms

* acute respiratory distress syndrome
* adult respiratory distress syndrome
* age distribution
* antidistribution
* Bernoulli distribution
* beta distribution
* binary distribution
* binomial distribution
* biodistribution
* Box-Cox distribution
* Cauchy distribution
* channel of distribution
* chi-square distribution
* clumped distribution
* codistribution
* complementary distribution
* conditional probability distribution
* cumulative distribution function
* digital distribution
* dist
* distie
* distributional
* distributionally
* distributionaly
* distribution board
* distribution channel
* distribution curve
* distribution-free
* distribution function
* distributionism
* distributionist
* distributionless
* distribution list
* distribution lot
* distribution park
* distribution server
* distribution transformer
* distro
* e-distribution
* equidistribution
* equidistributional
* exponential distribution
* F distribution
* first success distribution
* frequency distribution
* gamma distribution
* Gaussian distribution
* geodistribution
* geometric distribution
* global distribution system
* Gompertz distribution
* hyperdistribution
* hypergeometric distribution
* immunodistribution
* income distribution
* interdistributional
* Laplace distribution
* log-normal distribution
* maldistribution
* marginal distribution
* mass distribution
* Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution
* microdistribution
* misdistribution
* Mittag-Leffler distribution
* multidistribution
* negative binomial distribution
* nondistribution
* nondistributional
* normal distribution
* overdistribution
* palaeodistribution
* palaeodistributional
* paleaodistribution
* paleodistribution
* paleodistributional
* paracontrolled distribution
* Pareto distribution
* photodistribution
* Poisson distribution
* postdistribution
* predistribution
* probability distribution
* property distribution
* quasidistribution
* Rademacher distribution
* radial distribution function
* redistribution
* Rice distribution
* shifted geometric distribution
* stable distribution
* standard normal distribution
* stationary distribution
* Student's t distribution
* subdistribution
* superdistribution
* t distribution
* t-distribution
* tempered distribution
* Tukey lambda distribution
* ultradistribution
* underdistribution
* uniform distribution
* Wishart distribution
* Yule-Simon distribution

#### Related terms

* distributee
* distributive
* distributor

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### References

* “Distribution” on page 534 of § 1 (D, ed. James Augustus Henry Murray) of volume III (D–E, 1897) of A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (1st ed.)

### Further reading

* Distribution on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

## Danish
### Noun

distribution c (singular definite distributionen, plural indefinite distributioner)
* distribution, dissemination
* distribution of goods and/or services
* (statistics) a distribution

#### Declension
### Further reading

* “distribution” in Den Danske Ordbog

## French
### Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin distribūtiō.

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /dis.tʁi.by.sjɔ̃/
* Audio:(file)

### Noun

distribution f (plural distributions)
* delivery
    Near-synonym: livraison
    la distribution du courrier ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)
* distribution (process by which goods get to final consumers over a geographical market)
    la grande distribution ― large retailers
    la moyenne distribution ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)
    la petite distribution ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)
* allocation, casting
    Synonym: répartition
    la distribution des rôles ― (please add an English translation of this usage example)
* distribution (physical arrangement, spacing)
    Synonym: répartition
    aire de distribution ― range
    distribution complémentaire ― complementary distribution

### Further reading

* “distribution”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

## Swedish
### Noun

distribution c
* distribution
* (mathematics) a distribution, generalized function
* (statistics) a distribution

#### Related terms

* distribuera

#### See also

* fördelning
* spridning
* utdelning

### References

* distribution in Svensk ordbok (SO)
* distribution in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)