[Lat. medianum, Fr. moyen, O. & Norm. Fr. meane. See supra.]
1Sense 1. That which is intermediate between two extremes; the middle point or place; middle rate or degree; mediocrity; medium; absence of extremes or excess; moderation; measure.
But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude. Bacon.
There is a mean in all things. Dryden.
But no authority of gods or men
Allows of any mean in poesy. Roscommon.
The extremes we have mentioned, between which the well-instructed Christian holds the mean, are correlatives. I. Taylor.
2Sense 2. (Math.) A quantity having an intermediate value between several others, from which it is derived, and of which it expresses the resultant value; usually, unless otherwise specified, it is the simple average, formed by adding the quantities together and dividing by their number, which is called an arithmetical mean. A geometrical mean is the square root of the product of the quantities.
3Sense 3. That through which, or by the help of which, an end is attained; something tending to an object desired; intermediate agency or measure; necessary condition or co-agent; instrument.
The virtuous conversation of Christians was a mean to work the conversion of the heathen to Christ. Hooker.
You may be able, by this mean, to review your own scientific acquirements. Coleridge. Philosophical doubt is not an end, but a mean. Sir W. Hamilton.
☞ In this sense the word is most usually employed in the plural form means, and often with a singular attribute or predicate, as if a singular noun.
By this means he had them more at vantage. Bacon.
A good character, when established, should not be rested on as an end, but employed as a means of doing good. Atterbury.
4Sense 4. (pl.) Hence, resources; property, revenue, or the like, considered as the condition of easy livelihood, or an instrumentality at command for effecting any purpose; disposable force or substance. “Your means are slender.” Shak.
5Sense 5. (Mus.) The part intermediate between the soprano and bass; tenor; counter. [Obs.]
The mean is drowned with your unruly base. Milton.
By all means, certainly; without fail; at any rate; as, go, by all means. — By any means, in any way; possibly; at all. “If by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead.” Phil. iii. 11. — By no means, or by no manner of means, not at all; certainly not; not in any degree. “The wine on this side of the lake is by no means so good as that on the other.” Addison. — In the mean, in the mean time; meanwhile. [Rare.] “And in the mean vouchsafe her honorable tomb.” Spenser.