A false positive from a cancer screening test will unnecessarily frighten a healthy person, a false negative will deprive them of timely treatment.
A false positive can be returned on a password checking algorithm when the password is tested against a dictionary but the password does not contain a dictionary word.
Wikipedia foundation.
false-positive — adj relating to or being an individual or a test result that is erroneously classified in a positive category (as of diagnosis) because of imperfect testing methods or procedures <a false positive pregnancy test> compare false negative… … Medical dictionary
false positive — false positives N COUNT: oft N n A false positive is a mistaken result of a scientific test. For example, if the result of a pregnancy test is a false positive, it indicates that a woman is pregnant when she is not. ...a high rate of false… … English dictionary
false positive — n something that is wrongly thought or shown to be a particular thing, especially after a scientific test or ↑research ▪ 50% of the 170 compounds were judged to be carcinogenic, but some of these might be false positives. ▪ Many substances give… … Dictionary of contemporary English
false positive — false positive/negative/ phrase an incorrect result of a scientific test One of the biggest complaints about current tests is that they give false positive results. Thesaurus: scientific research and relating to scientific researchhyponym… … Useful english dictionary
False positive — A result that is erroneously positive when a situation is normal. An example of a false positive: a particular test designed to detect cancer of the toenail is positive but the person does not have toenail cancer. * * * 1. A test result that… … Medical dictionary
False Positive — Die Artikel falsch positiv und Fehler 1. Art überschneiden sich thematisch. Hilf mit, die Artikel besser voneinander abzugrenzen oder zu vereinigen. Beteilige dich dazu an der Diskussion über diese Überschneidungen. Bitte entferne diesen Baustein … Deutsch Wikipedia
False positive — Die Artikel falsch positiv und Fehler 1. Art überschneiden sich thematisch. Hilf mit, die Artikel besser voneinander abzugrenzen oder zu vereinigen. Beteilige dich dazu an der Diskussion über diese Überschneidungen. Bitte entferne diesen Baustein … Deutsch Wikipedia
False positive paradox — The false positive paradox is a situation where the incidence of a condition is lower than the false positive rate of a test and therefore when the test shows that a condition exists, it is probable that the result is a false positive. If there… … Wikipedia
False positive rate — When performing multiple comparisons in a statistical analysis, the false positive rate is the probability of falsely rejecting the null hypothesis for a particular test among all the tests performed. If the false positive rate is a constant α… … Wikipedia
false-positive — /fawls poz i tiv/, n. a test result that is incorrect because the test indicated a condition or finding that does not exist. Cf. false negative. * * * … Universalium
