# Polykay

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In [statistics](/source/Statistics), a **polykay**, or **generalised k-statistic**, (denoted k_{r,s}) is a statistic defined as a [linear combination](/source/Linear_combination) of [sample moments](/source/Sample_moment).[1]

## Etymology

The word *polykay* was coined by [American](/source/Americans) mathematician [John Tukey](/source/John_Tukey) in 1956, from *poly*, "many" or "much", and *kay*, the phonetic spelling of the letter "k", as in [k-statistic](/source/K-statistic).[2]

## References

1. ["Polykay"](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Polykay.html). Wolfram.

1. Tukey, J. W. (1956.) "Keeping Moment-Like Computations Simple", *Ann. Math. Stat.*, 27:37–54.

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