expectation

noun

1. 1

   The act or state of expecting or looking forward to an event as about to happen.

2. 2

   That which is expected or looked for.

3. 3

   The prospect of the future; grounds upon which something excellent is expected to occur; prospect of anything good to come, especially of property or rank.

4. 4

   The value of any chance (as the prospect of prize or property) which depends upon some contingent event.

5. 5

   The first moment; the long-run average value of a variable over many independent repetitions of an experiment.

6. 6

   (colloquial statistics) The arithmetic mean.

7. 7

   The leaving of a disease principally to the efforts of nature to effect a cure.