signal-to-noise ratio
nounUK /ˌsɪɡnəl tə ˈnɔɪz ˌreɪʃiəʊ/
US /ˌsɪɡnəl tə ˈnɔɪz ˌreɪʃoʊ/
It is how much clear sound there is compared to fuzzy noise.
The radio was hard to hear because the signal-to-noise ratio was low.
RELATED WORDS
OTHER MEANINGS
2. In science and engineering, it is a measure of how much useful information a signal carries compared to unwanted background noise.
Engineers improved the signal-to-noise ratio of the microphone to make voices clearer.
3. In everyday talk, it means how much useful or important information there is compared to distracting or irrelevant content.
The meeting had a poor signal-to-noise ratio because most of it was small talk.
4. In computing and data, it describes how much meaningful data stands out from errors or random variation.
Cleaning the dataset raised its signal-to-noise ratio and made the results more reliable.