mean

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To have a particular meaning; to express or stand for.

   What does this word mean?

2. 2
   verb

   To intend to do or say something.

   I didn't mean to hurt you.

3. 3
   verb

   To have something as a result; to involve.

   The water shortage means we have to stop taking long showers.

4. 4
   adj

   Unkind, cruel, or unwilling to share.

   It was mean of him to laugh at her mistake.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

The verb mean, “intend or convey,” is Old English and comes from an ancient root related to mind. The adjective meaning “stingy” or “small-minded” began with the sense “shared or common,” from a root also found in Latin communis, and developed through the senses “low in social rank” and “inferior”; the informal sense “excellent” is an early twentieth-century reversal. The mathematical noun mean, “average,” comes from Latin medianus, “middle,” and is also the source of means in the sense “method.”

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 co…

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External links

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• Cambridge Dictionary
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