Dictionaries › English

average

Pronunciation: /ˈæv.(ə.)ɹɪd͡ʒ/

The English word “average” has 15 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. Any measure of central tendency, especially any mean, the median, or the mode.
  2. The arithmetic mean.
  3. A financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss.
  4. Proportional or equitable distribution of financial expense.
  5. Customs duty or similar charge payable on transported goods.
  6. An indication of a player's ability calculated from his scoring record, etc.
  7. The feudal service that a tenant owed his lord, to be done by the animals of the tenant, such as the transportation of wheat, turf, etc.

adjective

  1. Constituting or relating to the average.
  2. Neither very good nor very bad; rated somewhere in the middle of all others in the same category.
  3. Typical.
  4. Not outstanding, not good, banal; bad or poor.

verb

  1. To compute the average of, especially the arithmetic mean.
  2. Over a period of time or across members of a population, to have or generate a mean value of.
  3. To divide among a number, according to a given proportion.
  4. To be, generally or on average.

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French avarie (“damage to ship or cargo”), from Old French avarie, from Old Italian avaria where it is first attested in the 12th century in the context of Mediterranean trade. From there most sources trace it to Arabic عَوَارِيَّة (ʕawāriyya, “damaged goods”), from عَوَار (ʕawār, “fault, blemish, defect, flaw”), from عَوِرَ (ʕawira, “to lose an eye”), but the OED gives it a…

Keep exploring: in the interactive dictionary every word of a definition is a link. Open “average” there

More English words

About this dictionary

The English dictionary on Glottosphere has 650,529 entries with a page. Browse the English dictionary.

Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.