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Original · left

Decay (rot)

The biological rot and decomposition of organic matter broken down by bacteria and fungi.

First in use: ancient / pre-modern
Duplicate · right

Weight decay

A regularization penalty (e.g., weight decay) that shrinks parameter values during training to prevent overfitting.

First in use: the 1990s

Decay / Decay (rot) / Weight decay

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Rot vs. regularization.

Which meaning of Decay is the original, and which one is the duplicate riding on its name? Decay (rot) came first (ancient / pre-modern). Weight decay arrived in the 1990s. The data below shows which one owns the word now.

Wikipedia pageviews since 2015

Decay (rot)Weight decay
English Wikipedia pageviews since July 2015 load here.

Duplicate's share of attention

Green line = duplicate's % · above 60 it owns the word · below 40 the original does

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The case for each meaning

Sourced definitions, usage stats and quotes

Original · ancient / pre-modern

Decay (rot)

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Duplicate · the 1990s

Weight decay

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More duplicated terms

AI & machine learning