"long tail" meaning in English

See long tail in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: long tails [plural]
Etymology: In the marketing sense popularized by journalist Chris Anderson in 2004, alluding to the long tail of a power law distribution. Head templates: {{en-noun}} long tail (plural long tails)
  1. (marketing, sometimes capitalized) Sales made for less usual goods within a very large choice, which can return a profit through reduced marketing and distribution costs. Tags: capitalized, sometimes Categories (topical): Marketing Translations (sales made for less usual goods): longue traîne [feminine] (French)
    Sense id: en-long_tail-en-noun-4c8tAuPa Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 77 23 Topics: business, marketing Disambiguation of 'sales made for less usual goods': 95 5
  2. (mathematics, probability) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: The tail of a distribution that represents the rare occurrence of extreme values. Categories (topical): Mathematics Related terms: big head, power law
    Sense id: en-long_tail-en-noun-MQcmHvYb Categories (other): &lit not valid pagename Topics: mathematics, probability, sciences

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for long tail meaning in English (3.2kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "In the marketing sense popularized by journalist Chris Anderson in 2004, alluding to the long tail of a power law distribution.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "long tails",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "long tail (plural long tails)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Marketing",
          "orig": "en:Marketing",
          "parents": [
            "Business",
            "Economics",
            "Society",
            "Social sciences",
            "All topics",
            "Sciences",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "77 23",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004 October, Chris Anderson, “The Long Tail”, in Wired, →ISSN, archived from the original on 2016-01-12",
          "text": "What’s really amazing about the Long Tail is the sheer size of it. Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you’ve got a market bigger than the hits.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Astra Taylor, quoting Eric Schmidt, chapter 4, in The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company",
          "text": "“I would like to tell you that the Internet has made such a level playing field that the Long Tail is absolutely the place to be, that there's so much differentiation, so much diversity, so many new voices. I'd love to tell you that that's in fact how it really works. Unfortunately, it's not,” Schmidt said.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Sales made for less usual goods within a very large choice, which can return a profit through reduced marketing and distribution costs."
      ],
      "id": "en-long_tail-en-noun-4c8tAuPa",
      "links": [
        [
          "marketing",
          "marketing#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "capitalized",
          "capitalisation"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(marketing, sometimes capitalized) Sales made for less usual goods within a very large choice, which can return a profit through reduced marketing and distribution costs."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "capitalized",
        "sometimes"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "business",
        "marketing"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "95 5",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "sales made for less usual goods",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "longue traîne"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "&lit not valid pagename",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Mathematics",
          "orig": "en:Mathematics",
          "parents": [
            "Formal sciences",
            "Sciences",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: The tail of a distribution that represents the rare occurrence of extreme values."
      ],
      "id": "en-long_tail-en-noun-MQcmHvYb",
      "links": [
        [
          "mathematics",
          "mathematics"
        ],
        [
          "tail",
          "tail"
        ],
        [
          "distribution",
          "distribution"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(mathematics, probability) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: The tail of a distribution that represents the rare occurrence of extreme values."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "word": "big head"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "0 100",
          "word": "power law"
        }
      ],
      "topics": [
        "mathematics",
        "probability",
        "sciences"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Chris Anderson (writer)"
  ],
  "word": "long tail"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns"
  ],
  "etymology_text": "In the marketing sense popularized by journalist Chris Anderson in 2004, alluding to the long tail of a power law distribution.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "long tails",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "long tail (plural long tails)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "big head"
    },
    {
      "word": "power law"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Marketing"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2004 October, Chris Anderson, “The Long Tail”, in Wired, →ISSN, archived from the original on 2016-01-12",
          "text": "What’s really amazing about the Long Tail is the sheer size of it. Combine enough nonhits on the Long Tail and you’ve got a market bigger than the hits.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014, Astra Taylor, quoting Eric Schmidt, chapter 4, in The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age, Henry Holt and Company",
          "text": "“I would like to tell you that the Internet has made such a level playing field that the Long Tail is absolutely the place to be, that there's so much differentiation, so much diversity, so many new voices. I'd love to tell you that that's in fact how it really works. Unfortunately, it's not,” Schmidt said.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Sales made for less usual goods within a very large choice, which can return a profit through reduced marketing and distribution costs."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "marketing",
          "marketing#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "capitalized",
          "capitalisation"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(marketing, sometimes capitalized) Sales made for less usual goods within a very large choice, which can return a profit through reduced marketing and distribution costs."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "capitalized",
        "sometimes"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "business",
        "marketing"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "&lit not valid pagename",
        "en:Mathematics"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: The tail of a distribution that represents the rare occurrence of extreme values."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "mathematics",
          "mathematics"
        ],
        [
          "tail",
          "tail"
        ],
        [
          "distribution",
          "distribution"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(mathematics, probability) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: The tail of a distribution that represents the rare occurrence of extreme values."
      ],
      "topics": [
        "mathematics",
        "probability",
        "sciences"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "sales made for less usual goods",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "longue traîne"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Chris Anderson (writer)"
  ],
  "word": "long tail"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.