Word: mean Part of Speech: noun 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. Pronunciation: /miːn/, /mijən/, /min/ 1. A method or course of action used to achieve some result. Labels: also Example: To say truth, it is a meane full of uncertainty and danger. Example: You may be able, by this mean, to review your own scientific acquirements. 2. An intermediate step or intermediate steps. Labels: obsolete, singular Example: 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. Example: 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. 3. Something which is intermediate or in the middle; an intermediate value or range of values; a medium. Example: Then will not this constitution be a kind of mean between aristocracy and oligarchy? Example: as a mean, it implies certain extremes between which it lies, namely the more and the less 4. The middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music; an alto instrument. Labels: historical Example: Of these [rattles] they have Base, Tenor, Countertenor, Meane, and Treble. 5. 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. Example: 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. Example: Luckily, even though the arithmetic mean is unusable, both the harmonic and geometric means settle to precise values as the amount of data increases. 6. 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. Example: While the average age of the rioter was 27.8 years, the mean age of the nonrioter was 38.1. 7. Either of the two numbers in the middle of a conventionally presented proportion, as 2 and 3 in 1:2=3:6. Example: ...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. Example: 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.