Average vs Main - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between average and main

is that average is (legal|marine) financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss while main is .

As an adjective average

is (not comparable) constituting or relating to the average.

As a verb average

is (informal) to compute the arithmetic mean of.

average

English

(wikipedia average)

Noun

(en noun)

(legal, marine) Financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss.

* 2008 , Filiberto Agusti, Beverley Earle, Richard Schaffer, Filiberto Agusti, Beverley Earle, International Business Law and Its Environment , page 219,

Historically, the courts have allowed a general average' claim only where the loss occurred as a result of the ship being in immediate peril.The court awarded the carrier the general '''average''' claim. It noted that “a ship?s master should not be discouraged from taking timely action to avert a disaster,” and need not be in actual peril to claim general ' average .

Customs duty or similar charge payable on transported goods.

Proportional or equitable distribution of financial expense.

(mathematics) The arithmetic mean.

* {{quote-magazine, title=Towards the end of poverty

, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=11, magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.}}

The average of 10, 20 and 24 is (10 + 20 + 24)/3 = 18.

(statistics) Any measure of central tendency, especially any mean, the median, or the mode.

(sports) An indication of a player's ability calculated from his scoring record, etc.

(UK, legal, obsolete) The service that a tenant owed his lord, to be done by the animals of the tenant, such as the transportation of wheat, turf, etc.

(UK, in the plural) In the corn trade, the medial price of the several kinds of grain in the principal corn markets.

Usage notes

* (sense) The term average' may refer to the statistical mean, median or mode of a batch, sample, or distribution, or sometimes any other measure of central tendency. Statisticians and responsible news sources are careful to use whichever of these specific terms is appropriate. In common usage, ' average refers to the arithmetic mean. It is, however, a common rhetorical trick to call the most favorable of mean, median and mode the "average" depending on the interpretation of a set of figures that the speaker or writer wants to promote.

Coordinate terms

* (measure of central tendency) arithmetic mean, geometric mean, harmonic mean, mean, median, mode

Derived terms

* above average * average atomic mass * averager * batting average * below average * bowling average * earned run average * general average * grade point average * height above average terrain * law of averages * moving average * on average * particular average * rolling average * slugging average * subaverage * time average * weighted average * weighted-average cost of capital

Adjective

(en adjective)

(not comparable) Constituting or relating to the average.

The average age of the participants was 18.5.

Neither very good nor very bad; rated somewhere in the middle of all others in the same category.

I soon found I was only an average chess player.

Typical.

* 2002 , Andy Turnbull, The Synthetic Beast: When Corporations Come to Life , page 12,

We tend to think that exceptionally attractive men and women are outstanding but the fact is that they are more average than most.

* 2004 , Deirdre V. Lovecky, Different Minds: Gifted Children with AD/HD, Asperger Syndrome, and Other Learning Deficits , page 75,

Things that never would occur to more average children, with and without AD/HD, will give these children nightmares.

* '2009'', Susan T. Fiske, ''Social Beings: Core Motives in Social Psychology , page 73,

In other words, highly attractive people like highly attractive communicators and more average' people like more ' average communicators.

The average family will not need the more expensive features of this product.

(informal) Not outstanding, not good, banal; bad or poor.

* 2002 , Andy Slaven, Video Game Bible, 1985-2002 , page 228,

The graphics, sound, and most everything else are all very average . However, the main thing that brings this game down are the controls - they feel very clumsy and awkward at times.

* 2005 , Brad Knight, Laci Peterson: The Whole Story: Laci, Scott, and Amber's Deadly Love Triangle , page 308,

But what the vast majority of the populace doesn?t realise is the fact that he?s only on TV because he became famous from one case, Winona Ryder's, which, by the way, he lost because he?s only a very average attorney.

* 2009 , Carn Tiernan, On the Back of the Other Side , page 62,

In the piano stool there was a stack of music, mostly sentimental ballads intended to be sung by people with very average voices accompanied by not very competent pianists.

Synonyms

* (constituting or relating to the average) mean; expectation (colloquial) * (neither very good nor very bad) mediocre, medium, middle-ranking, middling, unremarkable, so-so, * (typical) conventional, normal, regular, standard, typical, usual, bog-standard (slang) * ordinary, uninspiring

Antonyms

* (neither very good nor very bad) extraordinary

Derived terms

* average bear * average Joe * averagely * averageness

Verb

(averag)

(informal) To compute the arithmetic mean of.

If you average 10, 20 and 24, you get 18.

Over a period of time or across members of a population, to have or generate a mean value of.

The daily high temperature last month averaged 15°C.

To divide among a number, according to a given proportion.

to average a loss

To be, generally or on average.

* 1872 Elliott Coues, Key to North American Birds

Gulls average much larger than terns, with stouter build

Derived terms

* average down * average out * average up * averageable * unaveraged

main

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) (m), (m), (m), partly from (etyl) . More at (may).

Adjective

(-)

(label) Great in size or degree; vast; strong; powerful; important.

* (Samuel Daniel) (1562-1619)

Principal; prime; chief; leading; of chief or principal importance.

* (John Tillotson) (1630-1694)

* , chapter=7

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.}}

*{{quote-book, year=1935, author= George Goodchild

, title=Death on the Centre Court, chapter=5 , passage=By one o'clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country.}}

Principal or chief in size or extent; largest; consisting of the largest part; most important by reason or size or strength.

* (John Milton) (1608-1674)

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-03, volume=408, issue=8847, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Yesterday’s fuel , passage=The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania.

Full; undivided; sheer (of strength, force etc.).

* 1817 , (Walter Scott), , XII:

(label) Belonging to or connected with the principal mast in a vessel.

(label) Big; angry.

Derived terms

* main drag * main road

Adverb

(en adverb)

Very; very much; greatly; mightily; extremely; exceedingly.

* 1799 , Samuel Foote, The works of Samuel Foote :

* 1840 , Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Leigh Hunt, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The dramatic works of Richard Brinsley Sheridan :

Etymology 2

From (etyl) , later also taking senses from the adjective.

Noun

(en noun)

* Spenser

That which is chief or principal; the chief or main portion; the gross; the bulk; the greater part.

* Francis Bacon

* 1858 , Humphrey Prideaux, James Talboys Wheeler, An historical connection of the Old and New Testaments :

* Francis Bacon

* 1624 , John Smith, Generall Historie , in Kupperman 1988, page 90:

* 1624 , John Donne, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, and severall steps in my Sicknes (Meditation XVII):

* 1851 , Herman Melville, Moby-Dick :

* Dryden

A large pipe or cable providing utility service to a building or area, such as water main or electric main.

(label) The mainsail.

Quotations

* (English Citations of "main")

Derived terms

{{der3, (large pipe or cable) gas main, mains (qualifier), water main , in the main , main brace , main drag , maincrop , mainframe , mainland , mainline, main line , mainmast , mainplane , mainsail , mainsheet , mainspring , mainstreet, main street , maintop , maintopmast}}

Etymology 3

; compare (manual).

Noun

(en noun)

A hand or match in a game of dice.

(Prior)

(Thackeray)

A stake played for at dice.

* Shakespeare, The First Park of King Henry IV

The largest throw in a match at dice; a throw at dice within given limits, as in the game of hazard.

A match at cockfighting.

* Thackeray

A main-hamper, or fruit basket.

(Ainsworth)

Statistics

Anagrams

External links

* 1000 English basic words ----