mean
Part of speech: verb
adj
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: entertainment
lifestyle
mathematics
music
sciences
statistics
Etymology: From Middle English menen (“to intend; remember; lament; comfort”), from Old English mǣnan (“to mean, complain”), Proto-West Germanic *mainijan, from Proto-Germanic *mainijaną (“to mean, think; complain”), from Proto-Indo-European *meyn- (“to think”), or perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *meyno-, extended form of Proto-Indo-European *mey-.
Germanic cognates include West Frisian miene (“to deem, think”) (Old Frisian mēna (“to signify”)), Dutch menen (“to believe, think, mean”) (Middle Dutch menen (“to think, intend”)), German meinen (“to think, mean, believe”), Old Saxon mēnian. Indo-European cognates include Old Irish mían (“wish, desire”) and Polish mienić (“to signify, believe”). Non-Indo-European cognates include Finnish mainita (“to mention”), Finnish meinata (“to mean, to plan, to intend”) Estonian mainima (“to mention”), Northern Sami máinnastit (“to tell”). Related to moan.
Inflected forms:
form: means
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: meaning
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: meant
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: meant
pos: verb
tags: past
form: meaner
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: meanest
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: means
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: myn
pos: noun
tags: alternative
Senses:
gloss: To intend.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: I didn't mean to knock your tooth out.
I mean to go to Arévalo in Spain this summer; I’ve been meaning to tell you for weeks, but I’ve just found the time.
I meant to take the car in for a smog check, but it slipped my mind.
The authors meant a challenge to the status quo.
Do you mean to say you regret it after all?
Doo not my captaines and my ſouldiers looke
As if they meant to conquer Affrica?
gloss: To intend.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Don't be angry; she meant well.
gloss: To intend.
pos: verb
tags: passive
regional
transitive
examples: Actually this desk was meant for the subeditor.
Man was not meant to question such things.
gloss: To intend.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Your reasoning seems needlessly abstruse, complex, and verbose for me. I mean, could you dumb it down for my sake?
gloss: To convey (a meaning).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The sky is red this morning—does that mean we're in for a storm?
An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine.
gloss: To convey (a meaning).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: What does this hieroglyph mean?
A term should be included if it’s likely that someone would run across it and want to know what it means.
Americans, for example, call newcomers to Antarctica “fingies”, which comes from FNGs – a borrowed military abbreviation that means “Fucking New Guy”.
gloss: To convey (a meaning).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.
He’s a little different, if you know what I mean.
gloss: To have conviction in (something said or expressed); to be sincere in (what one says).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: Does she really mean what she said to him last night?
Say what you mean and mean what you say.
gloss: To cause or produce (a given result); to bring about (a given result).
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: One faltering step means certain death.
This breakthrough will mean that we spend less on electricity bills.
It was a goal that meant West Ham won on their first appearance at Wembley in 31 years, in doing so becoming the first team since Leicester in 1996 to bounce straight back to the Premier League through the play-offs.
One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains.[…]But out of sight is out of mind. And that, together with the inherent yuckiness of the subject, means that many old sewers have been neglected and are in dire need of repair.
gloss: To be of some level of importance.
pos: verb
tags: usually
examples: That little dog meant everything to me.
Formality and titles mean nothing in their circle.
gloss: To lament.
pos: verb
tags: Ireland
UK
regional
examples: All the tyme of his sickness he never said, “Alace!” or meaned any pain, whilk was marvellous. Never man died in greater peace of mind or body.
“ If you should die for me, sir knight,
“ There’s few for you will mane,
“ For many a better has died for me,
“ Whose graves are growing green.
gloss: Common; general.
pos: adj
tags: obsolete
gloss: Of a common or low origin, grade, or quality; common; humble.
pos: adj
tags: archaic
examples: a man of mean parentage
a mean abode
Thinke you I weigh this treaſure more than you?
Not all the Gold in Indias welthy armes,
Shall buy the meaneſt ſouldier in my traine.
After every qualification of property had been laid aside, the armies of the Roman emperors were still commanded, for the most part, by officers of liberal birth and education; but the common soldiers, like the mercenary troops of modern Europe, were drawn from the meanest, and very frequently from the most profligate, of mankind.
Why lies He in such mean estate,
Where ox and ass are feeding?
gloss: Low in quality or degree; inferior; poor; shabby.
pos: adj
examples: a mean appearance
a mean dress
gloss: Without dignity of mind; destitute of honour; low-minded; spiritless; base.
pos: adj
examples: a mean motive
It was mean of you to steal that little girl's piggy bank.
Can you imagine I ſo mean could prove, / To ſave my Life by changing of my Love?
Prince John: Your foe has bloodied you, sir knight. Will you concede defeat? You fight too well to die so mean a death. Will you not throw in your lot with me instead?
Ivanhoe: That would be an even meaner death, Your Grace.
The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen. No one queried it. It was in the classic pattern of human weakness, mean and embarrassing and sad.
gloss: Of little value or worth; worthy of little or no regard; contemptible; despicable.
pos: adj
examples: The Roman legions and great Caesar found / Our fathers no mean foes.
gloss: Ungenerous; stingy; tight-fisted.
pos: adj
tags: UK
examples: He's so mean. I've never seen him spend so much as five pounds on presents for his children.
gloss: Disobliging; pettily offensive or unaccommodating.
pos: adj
gloss: Intending to cause harm, successfully or otherwise; bearing ill will towards another.
pos: adj
examples: Watch out for her: she's mean. I said good morning to her, and she punched me in the nose.
gloss: Powerful; fierce; strong.
pos: adj
examples: It must have been a mean typhoon that levelled this town.
[…]in the context of ships available at the time, they were aircraft carrier - fleet carriers. Now, granted, they may not have been the biggest and largest and meanest fleet carriers around, but they certainly were fleet carriers.
gloss: Hearty; spicy.
pos: adj
tags: colloquial
examples: We were sitting in Poetta’s candlelit kitchen waiting for some of her gut-burning chili to get done. Everybody that knows Poetta knows that she makes a mean chili that if you eat it by lunchtime, it can clean out your entire system by the end of the day.
She wasn’t the most accomplished cook in the world but she cold make a mean stew, she knew how to roast a chicken, and she could whip up eggs at least three different ways.
gloss: Accomplished with great skill; deft; hard to compete with.
pos: adj
tags: colloquial
examples: Your mother can roll a mean cigarette.
He hits a mean backhand.
A Robot Makes a Mean Caesar Salad, but Will It Cost Jobs? [title]
gloss: Difficult, tricky.
pos: adj
tags: childish
informal
often
examples: This problem is mean!
gloss: A method or course of action used to achieve some result.
pos: noun
tags: also
examples: To say truth, it is a meane full of uncertainty and danger.
You may be able, by this mean, to review your own scientific acquirements.
Philosophical doubt is not an end, but a mean.
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.
gloss: An intermediate step or intermediate steps.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
singular
examples: 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.
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.
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.
gloss: Something which is intermediate or in the middle; an intermediate value or range of values; a medium.
pos: noun
examples: Then will not this constitution be a kind of mean between aristocracy and oligarchy?
as a mean, it implies certain extremes between which it lies, namely the more and the less
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.
gloss: The middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music; an alto instrument.
pos: noun
tags: historical
examples: Of these [rattles] they have Base, Tenor, Countertenor, Meane, and Treble.
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
Luckily, even though the arithmetic mean is unusable, both the harmonic and geometric means settle to precise values as the amount of data increases.
The generalized power means include power means, certain Gini means, in particular the counter-harmonic means.
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
examples: While the average age of the rioter was 27.8 years, the mean age of the nonrioter was 38.1.
gloss: Either of the two numbers in the middle of a conventionally presented proportion, as 2 and 3 in 1:2=3:6.
pos: noun
examples: ...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.
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.
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.
Synonyms: inconsiderate
insensitive
halfhearted
mean
mean-spirited
merciless
petty
pitiless
poor-spirited
ruthless
thoughtless
tight
surly
uncaring
unfriendly
ungrateful
unkind
unkindly
unthinking
Antonyms: compassionate
kindly
nice
Related words: grim
harsh
humorless
stern
spread
range
Derived words: and I don't mean maybe
how do you mean
if you know what I mean
if you see what I mean
I mean
like one means it
meanable
mean business
mean everything to
mean the whole world to
mean the world to
mean to
mean to say
mean well
mismean
nah mean
no means no
sore boob means more boob
this means war
treat 'em mean to keep 'em keen
unmean
well-meaning
whaddayamean
what does … mean
what do you mean
y'all means all
you know what I mean
meanless
bemean
demean
lean and mean
mean as a snake
meandom
meanfem
mean girl
meanie
meanish
mean machine
mean-mouth
mean-mug
meanness
mean people suck
mean-spirited
meanspo
mean streak
mean streets
mean white
mean world syndrome
meany
no mean feat
semimean
absolute mean
arithmetic-geometric mean
arithmetic mean
Cesàro mean
Chisini mean
contraharmonic mean
generalised f-mean
generalized f-mean
geomean
geometric mean
golden mean
grand mean
harmonic mean
Heronian mean
Hölder mean
logarithmic mean
means
population mean
power mean
quadratic mean
quasi-arithmetic mean
regression to the mean
regression toward the mean
root mean square
sample mean
weighted mean
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: възнамерявам
roman: vǎznamerjavam
lang: Catalan
word: pretendre
lang: Cherokee
word: ᎤᏰᎸᎭ
roman: uyelvha
lang: Czech
word: chtít
lang: Czech
word: plánovat
lang: Dutch
word: willen
lang: Dutch
word: van plan zijn
lang: Esperanto
word: intenci
lang: Finnish
word: aikoa
lang: French
word: avoir l'intention
lang: French
word: entendre faire
lang: Galician
word: pretender
lang: German
word: beabsichtigen
lang: Hebrew
word: התכוון
lang: Hebrew
word: הִתְכַּוֵּן
roman: hitkavén
lang: Hindi
word: चाह
roman: cāh
lang: Hungarian
word: akar
lang: Hungarian
word: tervez
lang: Hungarian
word: szándékozik
lang: Hungarian
word: szándékában áll
lang: Icelandic
word: ætla
lang: Indonesian
word: bermaksud
lang: Italian
word: volere
lang: Italian
word: avere intenzione
lang: Italian
word: aver l'intenzione
lang: Italian
word: intendere
lang: Japanese
word: 意図する
roman: ito suru
lang: Japanese
word: するつもり
roman: suru tsumori
lang: Korean
word: 의도(意圖)하다
roman: uidohada
lang: Latin
word: volo
lang: Latin
word: habeo in animo
lang: Macedonian
word: сака
roman: saka
lang: Old English
word: þenċan
lang: Old English
word: willan
lang: Polish
word: chcieć
lang: Portuguese
word: pretender
lang: Portuguese
word: tencionar
lang: Romanian
word: vrea
lang: Romanian
word: dori
lang: Romanian
word: intenționa
lang: Russian
word: собира́ться
roman: sobirátʹsja
lang: Russian
word: намерева́ться
roman: namerevátʹsja
lang: Spanish
word: pretender
lang: Swedish
word: tänka
lang: Tagalog
word: sadyain
lang: Tagalog
word: kusain
lang: Tagalog
word: tikisin
lang: Telugu
word: పధకము వేయు
roman: padhakamu vēyu
lang: Telugu
word: అనుకోవడము
roman: anukōvaḍamu
lang: Thai
word: ตั้งใจ
roman: dtâng-jai
lang: Turkish
word: plânlamak
lang: Turkish
word: tasarlamak
lang: Ukrainian
word: збира́тися
roman: zbyrátysja
lang: Walloon
word: awè idêye
lang: Bulgarian
word: знача
roman: znača
lang: Catalan
word: significar
lang: Dutch
word: betekenen
lang: Finnish
word: merkitä
lang: Hebrew
word: אָמַר
roman: amár
lang: Hungarian
word: jelent
lang: Hungarian
word: számít
lang: Italian
word: tenerci
lang: Romanian
word: însemna
lang: Spanish
word: significar
lang: Spanish
word: importar
lang: Spanish
word: ser importante (para)
lang: Spanish
word: serle importante a
lang: Arabic
word: مُتَوَسِّط
roman: mutawassiṭ
lang: Bulgarian
word: средно
roman: sredno
lang: Finnish
word: keskiluku
lang: French
word: moyenne
lang: Greek
word: μέσος όρος
roman: mésos óros
lang: Icelandic
word: meðaltal
lang: Italian
word: media
lang: Malay
word: min
lang: Māori
word: toharite
lang: Māori
word: tau toharite
lang: Portuguese
word: média
lang: Russian
word: сре́днее
roman: srédneje
lang: Scottish Gaelic
word: meadhan
lang: Scottish Gaelic
word: cuibheas
lang: Scottish Gaelic
word: cuibheasachd
lang: Spanish
word: media