Noise figure - Definition and Overview

In telecommunication, noise figure (NF) is the ratio of the output noise power of a device to the portion thereof attributable to thermal noise in the input termination at standard noise temperature (usually 290 K).

The noise figure is thus the ratio of actual output noise to that which would remain if the device itself did not introduce noise. In heterodyne systems, output noise power includes spurious contributions from image-frequency transformation, but the portion attributable to thermal noise in the input termination at standard noise temperature includes only that which appears in the output via the principal frequency transformation of the system, and excludes that which appears via the image frequency transformation.

Source: from Federal Standard 1037C and from MIL-STD-188.