mean
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: mēn
ipa: /miːn/
note: Local Dublin
ipa: /miːn/
note: Local Dublin
ipa: /mijən/
homophone: meen
homophone: mene
homophone: mien
homophone: mesne
rhymes: -iːn
Forms: form: means
form: myn
Etymology: From Middle English meene, borrowed from Old French meien (French moyen), Late Latin mediānus (“that is in the middle, middle”), from Latin medius (“middle”). Cognate with mid. For the musical sense, compare the cognate Italian mezzano. Doublet of median and mizzen.
Senses: examples: text: To say truth, it is a meane full of uncertainty and danger.
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 5, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
text: You may be able, by this mean, to review your own scientific acquirements.
ref: c. 1812, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Essays:
text: Philosophical doubt is not an end, but a mean.
ref: 1860, William Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics:
text: Mr Obama produced an only slightly less ambitious goal for deficit reduction than the House Republicans, albeit working from a more forgiving baseline: $4 trillion over 12 years compared to $4.4 trillion over 10 years. But the means by which he would achieve it are very different.
ref: 2011 April 14, “Rival visions”, in The Economist:
qualifier: now chiefly in the plural form means
glosses: A method or course of action used to achieve some result.
raw_tags: in a singular sense
examples: text: Verily in this treatise this hath been mine only purpose; and the mean to bring the same to effect hath been such as whereby I studied to profit wholesomely, not to please delicately.
ref: a. 1563, Thomas Harding, "To the Reader", in The Works of John Jewel (1845 ed.)
text: That it was lawful and meritorious to kill and destroy the king, and all the said hereticks. — The mean to effect it, they concluded to be, that, 1. The king, the queen, the prince, the lords spiritual and temporal, the knights and burgoses of the parliament, should be blown up with powder. 2. That the whole royal issue male should be destroyed. S. That they would lake into their custody Elizabeth and Mary the king's daughters, and proclaim the lady Elizabeth queen. 4. That they should feign a Proclamation in the name of Elizabeth, in which no mention should be made of alteration of religion, nor that they were parties to the treason, until they had raised power to perform the same; and then to proclaim, all grievances in the kingdom should be reformed.
ref: 1606, The Trials of Robert Winter, Thomas Winter, Guy Fawkes, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Rob. Keyes, Thomas Bates, and Sir Everard Digby, at Westminster, for High Treason, being Conspirators in the Gunpowder-Plot:
text: a. 1623, John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi
Apply desperate physic: / We must not now use balsamum, but fire, / The smarting cupping-glass, for that's the mean / To purge infected blood, such blood as hers.
glosses: An intermediate step or intermediate steps.
examples: text: Then will not this constitution be a kind of mean between aristocracy and oligarchy?
ref: 1997, John Llewelyn Davies with David J. Vaughan, Republic, translation of original by Plato, page 263:
text: as a mean, it implies certain extremes between which it lies, namely the more and the less
ref: 1996, Harris Rackham, The Nicomachean Ethics, translation of original by Aristotle, page 118:
text: 1875, William Smith and Samuel Cheetham, editors, A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, Little, Brown and Company, volume 1, page 10, s.v. Accentus Ecclesiasticus,
It presents a sort of mean between speech and song, continually inclining towards the latter, never altogether leaving its hold on the former; it is speech, though always attuned speech, in passages of average interest and importance; it is song, though always distinct and articulate song, in passages demanding more fervid utterance.
glosses: Something which is intermediate or in the middle; an intermediate value or range of values; a medium.
examples: text: Of these [rattles] they have Base, Tenor, Countertenor, Meane, and Treble.
ref: 1624, John Smith, Generall Historie, Kupperman, published 1988, page 147:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: The middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music; an alto instrument.
examples: text: Note that (1.41) is simply the probability-weighted mean without any explicit allowance for the stratification; each observation is weighted by its inflation factor and the total divided by the total of the inflation factors for the survey.
ref: 1997, Angus Deaton, The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy, World Bank Publications, page 51
text: Luckily, even though the arithmetic mean is unusable, both the harmonic and geometric means settle to precise values as the amount of data increases.
ref: 2002, Clifford A. Pickover, The Mathematics of Oz: Mental Gymnastics from Beyond the Edge, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 246:
text: The generalized power means include power means, certain Gini means, in particular the counter-harmonic means.
ref: 2003, P. S. Bullen, Handbook of Means and Their Inequalities, Springer, →ISBN, page 251:
topics: mathematics
sciences
hypernyms: average
coordinate_terms: median
mode
glosses: Any function of multiple variables that satisfies certain properties and yields a number representative of its arguments; or, the number so yielded; a measure of central tendency.
topics: mathematics
sciences
statistics
hypernyms: average
average
coordinate_terms: median
mode
geometric mean
harmonic mean
quadratic mean
weighted mean
;
median
;
mode
glosses: Any function of multiple variables that satisfies certain properties and yields a number representative of its arguments; or, the number so yielded; a measure of central tendency.
The average of a set of values, calculated by summing them together and dividing by the number of terms.
synonyms: arithmetic mean
average
examples: text: ...if four numbers be in proportion, the product of the first and last, or of the two extremes, is equal to the product of the second and third, or of the two means.
ref: 1825, Silvestre François Lacroix, translated by John Farrar, An Elementary Treatise on Arithmetic, third edition, page 102:
text: Using the means-extremes property of proportions, you know that the product of the extremes equals the product of the means. The ratio t/4 = 5/2 can be rewritten as t:4 = 5:2, in which the extremes are t and 2, and the means are 4 and 5.
ref: 1999, Dawn B. Sova, How to Solve Word Problems in Geometry, McGraw-Hill,, →ISBN, page 85:
text: In #92;frac#123;18#125;#123;27#125;#61;#92;frac23, the product of the means is 2#92;cdot27, and the product of the extremes is 18#92;cdot3. Both products are 54.
ref: 2007, Carolyn C. Wheater, Homework Helpers: Geometry, Career Press,, →ISBN, page 99:
topics: mathematics
sciences
synonyms: geometric mean
mean proportional
glosses: Either of the two numbers in the middle of a conventionally presented proportion, as 2 and 3 in 1:2=3:6.
Hypernyms: topics: statistics
mathematics
sciences
word: measure of central tendency
topics: statistics
mathematics
sciences
word: measure of location
topics: statistics
mathematics
sciences
word: sample statistic
Coordinate terms: topics: statistics
mathematics
sciences
word: median
topics: statistics
mathematics
sciences
word: mode
Derived terms: word: absolute mean
word: arithmetic-geometric mean
word: arithmetic mean
word: Cesàro mean
word: Chisini mean
word: contraharmonic mean
word: generalised f-mean
word: generalized f-mean
word: geomean
word: geometric mean
word: golden mean
word: grand mean
word: harmonic mean
word: Heronian mean
word: Hölder mean
word: logarithmic mean
word: meanless
word: means
word: population mean
word: power mean
word: quadratic mean
word: quasi-arithmetic mean
word: regression to the mean
word: regression toward the mean
word: root mean square
word: sample mean
word: semimean
word: weighted mean
Related terms: topics: statistics
mathematics
sciences
word: spread
topics: statistics
mathematics
sciences
word: range