ScienceSeptember 1, 2026

centroid

SEN-troyd

Definition

The geometric center or average position of all points in a geometric shape or set of data points.

Etymology

Derived from the Greek 'kentron' (center) combined with the mathematical suffix '-oid' (resembling), the term was coined in the 19th century to describe the center of mass or geometric center of a figure.

In the news

In this article, the term appears in a figure caption describing 'cranial centroid size,' which refers to a statistical measure used to quantify and compare the overall size of thylacine skulls against other mammalian samples.

Century-old myth about the Tasmanian tiger may have been dangerously wrong

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