distribution
n. C / Un. the way something is shared or spread out among a group of people or over an area.
n. the process of sharing or spreading something out over an area or among a group; the arrangement of values in a data set. Often refers to the commercial movement of goods from producers to customers.
The distribution of the new books starts tomorrow morning.
The company is looking for a new partner to handle the distribution of its products across Europe.
Economists often study the distribution of wealth to understand how resources are allocated across different social classes and whether the gap between them is widening.
From Old French, from Latin distributio, from distribuere 'to distribute', itself from dis- 'apart' + tribuere 'to' (from tribus). By surface analysis, distribute + -ion.
Uncountable when referring to the general process of spreading or sharing; countable when referring to a specific statistical pattern or a logistical network.