mean

adj

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.

1. Having the mean as its value; average.

   “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.”

2. Middling; intermediate; moderately good, tolerable.

   “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”

name

1. Acronym of MongoDB, Express.js, AngularJS, Node.js: a software stack for developing web sites with both client-side and server-side use of JavaScript.

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.

1. A method or course of action used to achieve some result.

   “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.”

2. An intermediate step or intermediate steps.

   “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.”

3. Something which is intermediate or in the middle; an intermediate value or range of values; a medium.

   “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”

4. The middle part of three-part polyphonic music; now specifically, the alto part in polyphonic music; an alto instrument.

   “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.

   “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.”

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.

   “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.

   “...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.”

verb

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.

1. To intend.

   “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.”

2. To intend.

   “Don't be angry; she meant well.”

3. To intend.

   “Actually this desk was meant for the subeditor.”

   “Man was not meant to question such things.”

4. To intend.

   “Your reasoning seems needlessly abstruse, complex, and verbose for me. I mean, could you dumb it down for my sake?”

5. To convey (a meaning).

   “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.”

6. To convey (a meaning).

   “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.”

7. To convey (a meaning).

   “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean.”

   “He’s a little different, if you know what I mean.”

8. To have conviction in (something said or expressed); to be sincere in (what one says).

   “Does she really mean what she said to him last night?”

   “Say what you mean and mean what you say.”

9. To cause or produce (a given result); to bring about (a given result).

   “One faltering step means certain death.”

   “This breakthrough will mean that we spend less on electricity bills.”

10. To be of some level of importance.

    “That little dog meant everything to me.”

    “Formality and titles mean nothing in their circle.”

11. To lament.

    “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.”