spurious correlation
/ˌspjʊəriəs ˌkɒrəˈleɪʃən/
an apparent relationship caused by a third variable or chance
spurious correlation in a sentence
“The correlation between ice cream sales and drowning is spurious.”
Origin of spurious correlation
Latin spurius illegitimate + correlation
Related Words
causation
a relationship where one event directly produces another
correlation
a measure of the strength and direction of relationship between variables
regression
a method for modeling the relationship between variables
coefficient of determination
the proportion of variance explained by a model (R²)
residual
the difference between observed and predicted values
heteroscedasticity
non-constant variance in the error terms of a regression