Parametric statistics: a branch of statistics which assumes that sample data come from a population that can be adequately modeled by a pro bability distribution that has a fixed set of parameters.
Nonparametric statistics: a branch of statistics that is not based solely on parametrized families of probability distributions (e.g. mean and variance). Nonparametric statistics is based on either being distribuition-free or having a specified distribution but with the distribution’s parameters unspecified.