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What is Standard deviation?

The typical distance of a value from the mean of its set.

A sample divides by n−1 rather than n, correcting for the fact that the mean was itself estimated from the same data. Using n on a sample understates the spread.

Not to be confused with Variance

Variance is the mean squared distance; standard deviation is its square root, which puts it back in the units of the original data.

Where this is used