AI engineering glossary · Feature engineering data prep
What is discretization?
Discretization (also called Binning, Bucketing): Converting a continuous numeric feature into a set of ordered intervals, or bins, and labelling each value by its bin. It can capture non-linear effects in linear models and reduce noise, but loses detail within a bin.
Discretization: an example
Age is split into 18-25, 26-35, 36-50 and 50+, and each customer is tagged with one of four age bands.
Related terms
More Feature engineering data prep terms
- Domain knowledge features
- Dummy variable
- Dummy variable trap
- Duplicate removal
- Embedded method
- Entity embedding
- Equal-frequency binning
- Equal-width binning
Where you learn it
Discretization is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.