Definition:Nominal Data

Definition

Nominal data are data which have no intrinsic ordering but merely assign units to categories.

Examples

Eye Color

An example of nominal data is the eye colors of a set of children.

Marital Status

An example of nominal data is the marital status of adults in a particular town: whether single, married, widowed or divorced.

Also see

• Definition:Nominal Scale
• Definition:Nominal Variable

• Definition:Ordinal Data

• Results about nominal data can be found here.

Sources

• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): data (singular datum)
• 1998: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (2nd ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): nominal data
• 2008: David Nelson: The Penguin Dictionary of Mathematics (4th ed.) ... (previous) ... (next): nominal data