Kurtosis/Definition

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Kurtosis [r]: a mathematical expression defining the shape of a symmetrical probability distribution curve - sometimes referred to as "peakiness". It is sometimes adjusted to put the kurtosis of a normal distribution at zero (although some mathematicians then call it "excess kurtosis"). Positive kurtosis then means that more of the variance is due to infrequent extreme deviations, rather than to frequent modestly-sized deviations.