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Awful vs Average - What's the difference?

awful | average |

As adjectives the difference between awful and average

is that awful is oppressing with fear or horror; appalling, terrible while average is (not comparable) constituting or relating to the average.

As an adverb awful

is (colloquial) very, extremely; as, an awful big house.

As a noun average is

(legal|marine) financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss.

As a verb average is

(informal) to compute the arithmetic mean of.

awful

English

Alternative forms

* awfull (archaic)

Adjective

(en-adj)
  • Oppressing with fear or horror; appalling, terrible.
  • Inspiring awe; filling with profound reverence or respect; profoundly impressive.
  • *, I.56:
    • God ought not to be commixed in our actions, but with awful reverence, and an attention full of honour and respect.
  • * 1819 , Lord Byron, Don Juan , II.143:
    • And then she stopped, and stood as if in awe / (For sleep is awful ).
  • Struck or filled with awe.
  • (obsolete) Terror-stricken.
  • Worshipful; reverential; law-abiding.
  • Exceedingly great; usually applied intensively.
    • an awful bonnet
    I have learnt an awful amount today.
  • Very bad.
    • My socks smell awful .

    Usage notes

    * Nouns to which "awful" is often applied: day, truth, time, place, moment, mess, night, news, state, situation, smell, thought, person, pain, movie, consequence, crime, fate, death, tragedy, man, event, disease, story, condition, mistake, taste, picture, year, calamity, doom, film, catastrophe, secret, performance, storm, end, week, shape, choice.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Adverb

    (-)
  • (colloquial) Very, extremely; as, an awful big house.

    • See also

    * awfully.

    External links

    * *

    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