out·li·er

[out-lahy-er]
noun
1.
something that lies outside the main body or group that it is a part of, as a cow far from the rest of the herd, or a distant island belonging to a cluster of islands: The mail, along with eagerly awaited “special orders,” was delivered to the outliers weekly, thanks to Cap'n George and his trusty steamboat.
2.
someone who stands apart from others of his or her group, as by differing actions, beliefs, religious practices, etc.: an outlier among Muslims; an outlier among conservatives. outsider, nonconformist, maverick; original, eccentric, bohemian; dissident, dissenter, iconoclast, heretic.
3.
Statistics.
a.
an observation that is well outside of the expected range of values in a study or experiment, and which is often discarded from the data set: Experience with a variety of data-reduction problems has led to several strategies for dealing with outliers in data sets.
b.
a person whose abilities, achievements, etc., lie outside the range of statistical probability.
4.
Geology. a part of a formation left detached through the removal of surrounding parts by erosion. Compare inlier.
5.
Obsolete. a person residing outside the place of his or her business, duty, etc.

Origin:
1600–10; out- + lier

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2013.
Cite This Source Link To outlier
00:10
Outlier is always a great word to know.
So is horizon. Does it mean:
tectonic boundary where two plates are moving toward each other
thin, distinctive stratum useful for stratigraphic correlation
Collins
World English Dictionary
outlier (ˈaʊtˌlaɪə) [Click for IPA pronunciation guide]
 
n
1.  an outcrop of rocks that is entirely surrounded by older rocks
2.  a person, thing, or part situated away from a main or related body
3.  a person who lives away from his place of work, duty, etc
4.  statistics See scatter diagram a point in a sample widely separated from the main cluster of points in the sample

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Etymonline
Word Origin & History

outlier
c.1600, stone quarried ans removed but left unused, from out + lie (v.2). Transf. meaning "outsider" is recorded from 1680s; "anything detached from its main body" is from 1849; geological sense is from 1833.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
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Example sentences
But no doctor or research study has ever told my father that he couldn't be the
  outlier.
In my experience, when it comes to home media centers, there are two main camps
  and an outlier.
In theory, an outlier is something that is so unlikely that it is thought to be
  unrepresentative of the rest of the sample.
But the theory of outlier events doesn't actually say that they cannot
  eventually be predicted.
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