Etimology
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”). Related to moan.
verb
mean (third-person singular simple present means, present participle meaning, simple past and past participle meant)
To intend.
To convey (a meaning).
(transitive) To have conviction in (something said or expressed); to be sincere in (what one says). [from 18th c.]
(transitive) To cause or produce (a given result); to bring about (a given result). [from 19th c.]
(usually with to) To be of some level of importance.
Examples
I didn't mean to knock your tooth out.
I mean to go to Baddeck this summer.
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.
Doo not my captaines and my ſouldiers lookeAs if they meant to conquer Affrica?
Don't be angry; she meant well.
Actually this desk was meant for the subeditor.
Man was not meant to question such things.
Your reasoning seems needlessly abstruse, complex, and verbose for me. I mean, could you dumb it down for my sake?
The sky is red this morning—does that mean we're in for a storm?
There are four weekly services to Pyongyang . The K27 and K28 both leave twice a week from Beijing Train Station, meaning there’s a train on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.
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.
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. This in turn leads to the somewhat more formal guideline of including a term if it is attested and idiomatic.
I'm afraid I don't understand what you mean.
He is a little different, if you know what I mean.
Does she really mean what she said to him last night?
Say what you mean and mean what you say.
One faltering step means certain death.
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.
That little dog meant everything to me.
Formality and titles mean nothing in their circle.
Related words
synonyms
(convey, signify, indicate): convey, indicate, signify
(want or intend to convey): imply, mean to say
(intend; plan on doing): intend
(have conviction in what one says): be serious
(have intentions of a some kind):
(result in; bring about): bring about, cause, lead to, result in
verb
mean (third-person singular simple present means, present participle meaning, simple past and past participle meaned)
(Ireland, UK regional) To lament.
Examples
Thanne morned Mede · and mened hire to the kynge / To haue space to speke · spede if she myȝte.
They were forced to mean our estate to the Queen of England.
If you should die for me, sir knight, There's few for you will meane, [...]
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.
Etimology
From Middle English mene, imene, from Old English mǣne, ġemǣne (“common, public, general, universal”), from Proto-West Germanic *gamainī, from Proto-Germanic *gamainiz (“common”), from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“to change, exchange, share”). Cognate with West Frisian mien (“general, universal”), Dutch gemeen (“common, mean”), German gemein (“common, mean, nasty”), Danish gemen, Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌼𐌰𐌹𐌽𐍃 (gamains, “common, unclean”), Latin commūnis (“shared, common, general”) (Old Latin comoinem).
adjective
mean (comparative meaner, superlative meanest)
(obsolete) Common; general.
(now rare) Of a common or low origin, grade, or quality; common; humble.
Low in quality or degree; inferior; poor; shabby.
Without dignity of mind; destitute of honour; low-minded; spiritless; base.
Of little value or worth; worthy of little or no regard; contemptible; despicable.
(chiefly UK) Ungenerous; stingy; tight-fisted.
Disobliging; pettily offensive or unaccommodating.
Intending to cause harm, successfully or otherwise; bearing ill will towards another.
Powerful; fierce; strong.
(colloquial) Hearty; spicy.
(colloquial) Accomplished with great skill; deft; hard to compete with.
(informal, often childish) Difficult, tricky.
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?
Synonyms: cheap, grotty; see also Thesaurus:low-quality
a mean appearance
a mean dress
Synonyms: base, ignoble, selfish, unkind, vile
Antonyms: lofty, noble, honorable
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.
The Roman legions and great Caesar found / Our fathers no mean foes.
Synonyms: see Thesaurus:stingy
He's so mean. I've never seen him spend so much as five pounds on presents for his children.
Synonyms: cruel, malicious, nasty
Watch out for her, she's mean. I said good morning to her, and she punched me in the nose.
Synonyms: harsh, damaging, fierce
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.
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.
Synonyms: deft, skillful, top-notch
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]
This problem is mean!
Etimology
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.
adjective
mean (not comparable)
Having the mean (see noun below) as its value; average.
(obsolete) Middling; intermediate; moderately good, tolerable.
Examples
The mean family has 2.4 children.
In the mountain region of A-erh-t'ai Shan and Hsiang-t'ien Shan⁷, if the mean west wind velocity is five meters per second, the high tendency at 700mb on the anterior mountain slope may exceed 40 meters in 12 hours.
I have declared in the causes what harm costiveness hath done in procuring this disease; if it be so noxious, the opposite must needs be good, or mean at least, as indeed it is […].
being of middle age and a mean stature
according to the fittest style of lofty, mean, or lowly
Related words
related terms
median
mediate
mediation
mediator
mediocre
mediocrity
medium
noun
mean (plural means)
(now chiefly in the plural) A method or course of action used to achieve some result. [from 14th c.]
(obsolete, in the singular) An intermediate step or intermediate steps.
Something which is intermediate or in the middle; an intermediate value or range of values; a medium. [from 14th c.]
(music, now historical) The middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music; an alto instrument. [from 15th c.]
(statistics) The average of a set of values, calculated by summing them together and dividing by the number of terms; the arithmetic mean. [from 15th c.]
(mathematics) 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.
(mathematics) Either of the two numbers in the middle of a conventionally presented proportion, as 2 and 3 in 1:2=3:6.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Of these [rattles] they have Base, Tenor, Countertenor, Meane, and Treble.
Note that 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.
...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 18 27 = 2 3 {\displaystyle {\frac {18}{27}}={\frac {2}{3}}} , the product of the means is 2 ⋅ 27 {\displaystyle 2\cdot 27} , and the product of the extremes is 18 ⋅ 3 {\displaystyle 18\cdot 3} . Both products are 54.
Related words
hypernyms
(statistics): measure of central tendency, measure of location, sample statistic
coordinate terms
(statistics): median, mode