The mean man boweth down, and the great man humbleth
himself. --Is. ii. 9.
2. Wanting dignity of mind; low-minded; base; destitute of
honor; spiritless; as, a mean motive.
Can you imagine I so mean could prove, To save my
life by changing of my love ? --Dryden.
3. Of little value or account; worthy of little or no regard;
contemptible; despicable.
The Roman legions and great C[ae]sar found Our
fathers no mean foes. --J. Philips.
4. Of poor quality; as, mean fare.
5. Penurious; stingy; close-fisted; illiberal; as, mean
hospitality.
Note: Mean is sometimes used in the formation of compounds,
the sense of which is obvious without explanation; as,
meanborn, mean-looking, etc.
Syn: Base; ignoble; abject; beggarly; wretched; degraded;
degenerate; vulgar; vile; servile; menial; spiritless;
groveling; slavish; dishonorable; disgraceful; shameful;
despicable; contemptible; paltry; sordid. See {Base}.
What mean ye by this service ? --Ex. xii. 26.
Ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto
good. --Gen. 1. 20.
I am not a Spaniard To say that it is yours and not
to mean it. --Longfellow.
2. To signify; to indicate; to import; to denote.
What mean these seven ewe lambs ? --Gen. xxi.
29.
Go ye, and learn what that me?neth. --Matt. ix.
13.
Being of middle age and a mean stature. --Sir. P.
Sidney.
2. Intermediate in excellence of any kind.
According to the fittest style of lofty, mean, or
lowly. --Milton.
3. (Math.) Average; having an intermediate value between two
extremes, or between the several successive values of a
variable quantity during one cycle of variation; as, mean
distance; mean motion; mean solar day.
{Mean distance} (of a planet from the sun) (Astron.), the
average of the distances throughout one revolution of the
planet, equivalent to the semi-major axis of the orbit.
{Mean error} (Math. Phys.), the average error of a number of
observations found by taking the mean value of the
positive and negative errors without regard to sign.
{Mean-square error}, or {Error of the mean square} (Math.
Phys.), the error the square of which is the mean of the
squares of all the errors; -- called also, especially by
European writers, {mean error}.
{Mean line}. (Crystallog.) Same as {Bisectrix}.
{Mean noon}, noon as determined by mean time.
{Mean proportional} (between two numbers) (Math.), the square
root of their product.
{Mean sun}, a fictitious sun supposed to move uniformly in
the equator so as to be on the meridian each day at mean
noon.
{Mean time}, time as measured by an equable motion, as of a
perfect clock, or as reckoned on the supposition that all
the days of the year are of a mean or uniform length, in
contradistinction from apparent time, or that actually
indicated by the sun, and from sidereal time, or that
measured by the stars.
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.
The extremes we have mentioned, between which the
wellinstracted Christian holds the mean, are
correlatives. --I. Taylor.
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.
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
coagent; instrument.
Their virtuous conversation 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.
Note: In this sense the word is 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.
What other means is left unto us. --Shak.
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 very slender, and your waste is
great. --Shak.
5. (Mus.) A part, whether alto or tenor, intermediate between
the soprano and base; a middle part. [Obs.]
The mean is drowned with your unruly base. --Shak.
6. Meantime; meanwhile. [Obs.] --Spenser.
7. A mediator; a go-between. [Obs.] --Piers Plowman.
He wooeth her by means and by brokage. --Chaucer.
{By all means}, certainly; without fail; 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.
ll.
{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.