矩，又称动差，英文为moment。

数学中矩的概念来自于物理学。在物理学中，矩是用来表示物体形状的物理量。矩是用于物体形状识别的重要参数指标。定义在实数域上的实函数相对于值c的n阶矩为:

总的来说，在数学中，矩的概念是用来度量一组具有一定形态特点的点阵。举个常用的例子，一个“二阶矩”，我们在一维上可以测量它的“宽度”；而在更高端的维度上，由于其适用于椭球的空间分布，我们还可以对点的云结构进行测量和描述。其他的矩用来描述诸如与均值的歪斜分布情况（偏态），或峰值的分布情况（峰态）等其他方面的分布特点。

In mathematics, a moment is a specific quantitative measure, used in both mechanics and statistics, of the shape of a set of points. If the points represent mass, then the zeroth moment is the total mass, the first moment divided by the total mass is the center of mass, and the second moment is the rotational inertia. If the points represent probability density, then the zeroth moment is the total probability (i.e. one), the first moment is the mean, the second central moment is the variance, the third moment is the skewness, and the fourth moment (with normalization and shift) is the kurtosis. The mathematical concept is closely related to the concept of moment in physics.