Is there any words or technical phrases describing the things that do not belong to a specific cluster of things?

Question

Suppose we have 20 things;

We form a cluster encapsulating 15 items of these 20 things.

So, we would have 5 things that do not belong to that cluster of things.

I was wondering if I can refer to the remaining 5 objects as

or

If not, how could I describe them?

Can you give a more specific example: perhaps the things are "cows" and the cluster is "a herd".... But that is my example not yours. What are the things in your specific case? — James K, Aug 30, 2021 at 20:27
@JamesK Thank you James, I was afraid my question would come off too technical. I am talking about abstract modeling in mathematics. For instance, suppose you have 20 nodes representing 20 entities of a system. Also, suppose that 15 of them are clustered since the share a specific property. Something along this context. I hope this clarifies my question. — Cardinal, Aug 30, 2021 at 22:19

Weather Vane · Accepted Answer · 2021-08-30 19:02:51Z

1

You can use the term

outlier
_NOUN

1.1 A person or thing differing from all other members of a particular group or set.

for something that lies outside the norm.

answered Aug 30, 2021 at 19:02

Weather Vane

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1

This works if the items not in the cluster are significantly different from those in the cluster in some way apart from being in the cluster. So if you have 15 knives and three forks and 2 spoons, and you cluster the 15 knives, you might say that the forks and spoons are outliers. But if you have 20 knives, and you cluster 15 of them as "My knives" and five are left, then the 5 remaining are not outliers. I'm not sure that is very clear, but I know what I mean.
– James K
Aug 30, 2021 at 20:30
1

@JamesK it turns out that the OP is asking about data points, not cutlery.
– Weather Vane
Aug 31, 2021 at 9:10

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