What does s equal in statistics?

In statistics, "s" typically represents the sample standard deviation, which measures the dispersion or spread of a set of sample data points around their mean. It is calculated as the square root of the variance and provides insights into how much individual data points deviate from the sample mean. The formula for s is ( s = \sqrt{\frac{\sum (x_i - \bar{x})^2}{n - 1}} ), where ( x_i ) are the sample values, ( \bar{x} ) is the sample mean, and ( n ) is the number of observations in the sample.