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. 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. Meander
(Me*an"der) n. [L. Maeander, orig., a river in Phrygia, proverbial for its many windings, Gr. :
cf. F. méandre.]
1. A winding, crooked, or involved course; as, the meanders of the veins and arteries. Sir M. Hale.
While lingering rivers in meanders glide.
Sir R. Blackmore. 2. A tortuous or intricate movement.
