What does correlated mean?
"Correlated" describes a mutual relationship between two or more things in which changes in one correspond systematically to changes in another. It functions both as the past tense of the verb "correlate" — meaning to establish or demonstrate such a relationship — and as an adjective describing things that stand in that relationship, as when researchers note that sleep duration is strongly correlated with memory performance. The word belongs chiefly to formal registers: science, statistics, medicine, economics, and academic prose, where precision about relationships matters. Its most familiar collocations are "positively correlated", "negatively correlated", and "closely correlated", which specify the direction and strength of the link. Crucially, being correlated does not imply causation — two things may move together because of an outside factor, a distinction that makes this word central to critical thinking about data and evidence.
Past tense of correlate: to have shown or established that two or more things have a mutual relationship.
"The analysts correlated consumer spending data with weather patterns over five years."
Standing in a mutual relationship with something else, such that changes in one correspond to changes in the other.
"Blood pressure was significantly correlated with sodium intake in the cohort."
In statistics, ice cream sales and drowning deaths are famously correlated — not because ice cream is dangerous, but because both rise in hot weather: a reminder that correlation never proves causation.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of correlated
The word derives from "correlate", formed in English from the prefix "co-" (meaning "together") plus "relate", which comes from Latin "relatus", the past participle of "referre", meaning "to bring back" or "report". The compound entered scholarly English in the 17th century as philosophers sought a term for things that mutually imply or correspond to one another. It gained its modern statistical prominence in the late 19th century through the work of Francis Galton and Karl Pearson on correlation coefficients. It shares its Latin root "ferre" (to carry) with words such as "translate", "elate", and "superlative".
Related word forms
How correlated is actually used
Predominantly formal and technical, appearing most often in scientific, statistical, medical, and academic writing. As an adjective it typically appears attributively before nouns ('correlated variables') or predicatively after 'with' or 'to' ('strongly correlated with'). In everyday speech, simpler words like 'linked' are more common.
Easily confused with correlated
'Correlated' means showing or establishing a mutual relationship between things, while 'corroborated' means confirmed or supported by additional evidence.