{
  "id": "distribution.economic",
  "term": "distribution",
  "sense": "economic",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 10,
  "arena": "everyday",
  "domain": "general",
  "style": null,
  "definition": "the way something is given out to many spaces or people",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "share.distribution",
      "space.extent",
      "give.transfer",
      "people.social",
      "way.method",
      "given.premise"
    ],
    "interaction": "share and give move portions across space to people, forming a pattern defined by a way",
    "novel_properties": [
      "allocation pattern",
      "distributed access",
      "structured dispersal"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The 2020 U.S. Census data showed median household income distribution across counties using IRS tax records.",
      "domain": "economics"
    },
    {
      "text": "The Amazon Rainforest's seed distribution occurs via birds carrying fruit over hundreds of kilometers.",
      "domain": "biology"
    },
    {
      "text": "The 1973 oil crisis triggered a global redistribution of wealth from importing nations to OPEC countries.",
      "domain": "institutions"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "share.distribution",
      "type": "is-a",
      "note": "distribution is a kind of share"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "distribution",
    "distributions"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.6,
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "factual",
      "note": "Added 'given.premise' to components since the definition relies on the idea of something being distributed, which presumes a given thing in context. Definition remains unchanged as it is factually acc"
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-distribution.economic"
}