FP

3 synonyms and 2 antonyms for FP, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.

Noun — A false positive: a test, filter or detector result that wrongly indicates something is present when it is not.

Synonyms

Rare, literary or technical

Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.

false positive family planning freezing point

Synonyms by Meaning

1. noun technical

A false positive: a test, filter or detector result that wrongly indicates something is present when it is not.

“The scanner flagged 200 files, but most were FPs.”

false positive

Opposites

FN false negative

2. noun

Family planning: services, advice and contraception that help people decide whether and when to have children.

“The FP clinic offers free contraception and counselling.”

family planning

3. noun technical

Freezing point: the temperature at which a liquid becomes solid.

“The solvent has an FP of −95°C.”

freezing point

How to use FP

The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.

FP rate reduce FPs FP clinic FP services

Written in capitals without full stops. Always spell it out on first use in a document, since the expansions are unrelated.

Etymology

An initialism, expanding differently by field — false positive, family planning or freezing point.

Full origin of FP →

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between FP and FN?

An FP, or false positive, is a wrong alarm: the test says yes when the answer is no. An FN, or false negative, is a miss: the test says no when the answer is yes. Tuning a system to reduce one usually increases the other.

What is an FP rate?

The false positive rate is the proportion of genuinely negative cases that a test wrongly flags as positive. A spam filter with a 1% FP rate sends one legitimate email in a hundred to the junk folder.

Nearby words

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