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Close vs Mean - What's the difference?

close | mean | Related terms |

Close is a related term of mean.


As nouns the difference between close and mean

is that close is an end or conclusion or close can be an enclosed field while mean is middle.

As adjectives the difference between close and mean

is that close is closed, shut while mean is mid, central.

As a verb close

is (label) to remove a gap.

close

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) .

Verb

(clos)
  • (label) To remove a gap.
  • # To obstruct (an opening).
  • # To move so that an opening is closed.
  • #* (Lord Byron) (1788-1824)
  • What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?
  • #*
  • #*:If I close my eyes I can see Marie today as I saw her then. Round, rosy face, snub nose, dark hair piled up in a chignon.
  • # To make (e.g. a gap) smaller.
  • # To grapple; to engage in close combat.
  • #* (1796-1859)
  • They boldly closed in a hand-to-hand contest.
  • (label) To finish, to terminate.
  • # To put an end to; to conclude; to complete; to finish; to consummate.
  • #* (John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • One frugal supper did our studies close .
  • # To come to an end.
  • # (label) To make a sale.
  • # To make the final outs, usually three, of a game.
  • # To terminate an application, window, file or database connection, etc.
  • To come or gather around; to enclose; to encompass; to confine.
  • * Bible, (w) ii. 5
  • The depth closed me round about.
  • * (George Herbert) (1593-1633)
  • But now Thou dost Thyself immure and close / In some one corner of a feeble heart; / Where yet both Sinne and Satan, Thy old foes, / Do pinch and straiten Thee, and use much art / To gain Thy thirds' and little part.
  • (label) To have a vector sum of 0; that is, to form a closed polygon.
  • Synonyms
    * close off, close up, cover, shut, shut off * shut * (put an end to) end, finish, terminate, wind up, close down * narrow * (terminate a computer program) close out, exit
    Antonyms
    * open * open * (put an end to) begin, commence, initiate, start * extend, widen * (terminate a computer program) open, start
    Derived terms
    * autoclosing * case closed * close down * close in * close off * close one's eyes * close out * close ranks * close the door on * close the face * close up *

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An end or conclusion.
  • We owe them our thanks for bringing the project to a successful close .
  • * Macaulay
  • His long and troubled life was drawing to a close .
  • The manner of shutting; the union of parts; junction.
  • * Chapman
  • The doors of plank were; their close exquisite.
  • A grapple in wrestling.
  • (Francis Bacon)
  • (music) The conclusion of a strain of music; cadence.
  • * Dryden
  • At every close she made, the attending throng / Replied, and bore the burden of the song.
  • (music) A double bar marking the end.
  • Synonyms
    * (end) end, finale
    Antonyms
    * (end) beginning, start

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) clos, from (etyl) clausum, participle of (m).

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Closed, shut.
  • * 1526 , William Tyndale, trans. Bible , Matthew chapter 8:
  • There is nothinge so close , that shall not be openned, and nothinge so hyd that shall not be knowen.
  • * Dryden
  • From a close bower this dainty music flowed.
  • Narrow; confined.
  • a close''' alley; '''close quarters
  • * Charles Dickens
  • a close prison
  • At a little distance; near.
  • * , chapter=7
  • , title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=[…] St.?Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London. Close -packed, crushed by the buttressed height of the railway viaduct, rendered airless by huge walls of factories, it at once banished lively interest from a stranger's mind and left only a dull oppression of the spirit.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838, page=71, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= End of the peer show , passage=Finance is seldom romantic. But the idea of peer-to-peer lending comes close . This is an industry that brings together individual savers and lenders on online platforms. Those that want to borrow are matched with those that want to lend.}}
  • Intimate; well-loved.
  • # (legal) Of a corporation or other business entity, closely held.
  • Oppressive; without motion or ventilation; causing a feeling of lassitude.
  • * Francis Bacon
  • If the rooms be low-roofed, or full of windows and doors, the one maketh the air close , and the other maketh it exceeding unequal.
  • Hot, humid, with no wind.
  • (linguistics, phonetics, of a vowel) Articulated with the tongue body relatively close to the hard palate.
  • Strictly confined; carefully guarded.
  • a close prisoner
  • (obsolete) Out of the way of observation; secluded; secret; hidden.
  • * Bible, 1 Chron. xii. 1
  • He yet kept himself close because of Saul.
  • * Spenser
  • her close intent
  • Nearly equal; almost evenly balanced.
  • a close contest
  • Short.
  • to cut grass or hair close
  • (archaic) Dense; solid; compact.
  • * John Locke
  • The golden globe being put into a press, the water made itself way through the pores of that very close metal.
  • (archaic) Concise; to the point.
  • close reasoning
  • * Dryden
  • Where the original is close no version can reach it in the same compass.
  • (dated) Difficult to obtain.
  • Money is close .
    (Bartlett)
  • (dated) Parsimonious; stingy.
  • * Hawthorne
  • a crusty old fellow, as close as a vice
  • Adhering strictly to a standard or original; exact.
  • a close translation
    (John Locke)
  • Accurate; careful; precise; also, attentive; undeviating; strict.
  • The patient was kept under close observation.
    Synonyms
    * (at a little distance) close by, near, nearby * (intimate) intimate * muggy, oppressive * (articulated with the tongue body relatively close to the hard palate) high
    Antonyms
    * (at a little distance) distant, far, far away, far off, remote * (intimate) aloof, cool, distant * (articulated with the tongue body relatively close to the hard palate) open
    Derived terms
    * close call * closely * closeness * close shave * close-up * thisclose

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • An enclosed field.
  • (British) A street that ends in a dead end.
  • (Scotland) A very narrow alley between two buildings, often overhung by one of the buildings above the ground floor.
  • (Scotland) The common staircase in a tenement.
  • A cathedral close.
  • * Macaulay
  • closes surrounded by the venerable abodes of deans and canons.
  • (legal) The interest which one may have in a piece of ground, even though it is not enclosed.
  • (Bouvier)
    Synonyms
    * (street) cul-de-sac

    Statistics

    *

    mean

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) .

    Verb

  • To intend.
  • # (label) To intend, to plan (to do); to have as one's intention.
  • # (label) To have intentions of a given kind.
  • #
  • To convey meaning.
  • # (label) To convey (a given sense); to signify, or indicate (an object or idea).
  • #* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
  • , page=5 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) , title= A better waterworks , passage=An artificial kidney these days still means a refrigerator-sized dialysis machine. Such devices mimic the way real kidneys cleanse blood and eject impurities and surplus water as urine.}}
  • # (label) Of a word, symbol etc: to have reference to, to signify.
  • #*
  • A term should be included if it's likely that someone would run across it and want to know what it means'. This in turn leads to the somewhat more formal guideline of including a term if it is '''attested''' and ' idiomatic .
  • (label) To have conviction in (something said or expressed); to be sincere in (what one says).
  • (label) To result in; to bring about.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 19, author=Paul fletcher, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= Blackpool 1-2 West Ham , passage=It was a goal that meant West Ham won on their first appearance at Wembley in 31 years, in doing so becoming the first team since Leicester in 1996 to bounce straight back to the Premier League through the play-offs.}}
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2014-06-14, volume=411, issue=8891, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= It's a gas , passage=One of the hidden glories of Victorian engineering is proper drains.
  • (label) To be important (to).
  • Synonyms
    * (convey, signify, indicate ): convey, indicate, signify * (want or intend to convey ): imply, mean to say * (intend; plan on doing ): intend * (have conviction in what one says ): be serious * (have intentions of a some kind ): * (result in; bring about ): bring about, cause, lead to, result in

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) (m), (m), from (etyl) ((etyl) (m)).

    Adjective

    (er)
  • (obsolete) Common; general.
  • Of a common or low origin, grade, or quality; common; humble.
  • Low in quality or degree; inferior; poor; shabby.
  • Without dignity of mind; destitute of honour; low-minded; spiritless; base.
  • a mean motive
  • * Dryden
  • Can you imagine I so mean could prove, / To save my life by changing of my love?
  • Of little value or account; worthy of little or no regard; contemptible; despicable.
  • * J. Philips
  • The Roman legions and great Caesar found / Our fathers no mean foes.
  • Niggardly; penurious; miserly; stingy.
  • Disobliging; pettily offensive or unaccommodating; small.
  • Selfish; acting without consideration of others; unkind.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=20 citation , passage=The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen. No one queried it. It was in the classic pattern of human weakness, mean and embarrassing and sad.}}
  • Causing or intending to cause intentional harm; bearing ill will towards another; cruel; malicious.
  • Powerful; fierce; harsh; damaging.
  • Accomplished with great skill; deft; hard to compete with.
  • (informal, often, childish) Difficult, tricky.
  • Synonyms
    * (causing or intending to cause intentional harm ): cruel, malicious, nasty, spiteful * See also * (acting without consideration of others ): selfish, unkind, vile, ignoble * (powerful ): damaging, fierce, harsh, strong * (accomplished with great skill; deft; hard to compete with''): deft, skilful (''UK''), skillful (''US ), top-notch * (inferior''): cheap, grotty (slang), inferior, low-quality, naff (''UK slang ), rough and ready, shoddy, tacky (informal)
    Derived terms
    * meandom * meanie * meanness * meany

    Etymology 3

    From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) (m) ((etyl) (m)), . Cognate with (m).

    Adjective

    (-)
  • Having the mean (see noun below ) as its value.
  • (obsolete) Middling; intermediate; moderately good, tolerable.
  • *, II.ii.2:
  • I have declared in the causes what harm costiveness hath done in procuring this disease; if it be so noxious, the opposite must needs be good, or mean at least, as indeed it is […].
  • * Sir Philip Sidney
  • being of middle age and a mean stature
  • * Milton
  • according to the fittest style of lofty, mean , or lowly
    Derived terms
    * mean distance * mean time * mean solar time * mean sun

    Noun

    (wikipedia mean) (en noun)
  • * 1603 , John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Essays , II.5:
  • To say truth, it is a meane full of uncertainty and danger.
  • * Coleridge
  • You may be able, by this mean , to review your own scientific acquirements.
  • * Sir W. Hamilton
  • Philosophical doubt is not an end, but a mean .
  • * 2011 , "Rival visions", The Economist , 14 Apr 2011:
  • Mr Obama produced an only slightly less ambitious goal for deficit reduction than the House Republicans, albeit working from a more forgiving baseline: $4 trillion over 12 years compared to $4.4 trillion over 10 years. But the means by which he would achieve it are very different.
  • (obsolete, in the singular) An intermediate step or intermediate steps.
  • * a.'' 1563 , Thomas Harding, "To the Reader", in ''The Works of John Jewel (1845 ed.)
  • Verily in this treatise this hath been mine only purpose; and the mean to bring the same to effect hath been such as whereby I studied to profit wholesomely, not to please delicately.
  • * 1606 , The Trials of Robert Winter, Thomas Winter, Guy Fawkes, John Grant, Ambrose Rookwood, Rob. Keyes, Thomas Bates, and Sir Everard Digby, at Westminster, for High Treason, being Conspirators in the Gunpowder-Plot
  • That it was lawful and meritorious to kill and destroy the king, and all the said hereticks. — The mean to effect it, they concluded to be, that, 1. The king, the queen, the prince, the lords spiritual and temporal, the knights and burgoses of the parliament, should be blown up with powder. 2. That the whole royal issue male should be destroyed. S. That they would lake into their custody Elizabeth and Mary the king's daughters, and proclaim the lady Elizabeth queen. 4. That they should feign a Proclamation in the name of Elizabeth, in which no mention should be made of alteration of religion, nor that they were parties to the treason, until they had raised power to perform the same; and then to proclaim, all grievances in the kingdom should be reformed.
  • * a.'' 1623 ,
  • Apply desperate physic: / We must not now use balsamum, but fire, / The smarting cupping-glass, for that's the mean / To purge infected blood, such blood as hers.
  • Something which is intermediate or in the middle; an intermediate value or range of values; a medium.
  • *
  • *
  • * 1875 , William Smith and Samuel Cheetham, editors, A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities'', , volume 1, page 10, s.v. ''Accentus Ecclesiasticus ,
  • It presents a sort of mean between speech and song, continually inclining towards the latter, never altogether leaving its hold on the former; it is speech, though always attuned speech, in passages of average interest and importance; it is song, though always distinct and articulate song, in passages demanding more fervid utterance.
  • * 1624 , John Smith, Generall Historie , in Kupperman 1988, p. 147:
  • Of these [rattles] they have Base, Tenor, Countertenor, Meane , and Treble.
  • (statistics) The average of a set of values, calculated by summing them together and dividing by the number of terms; the arithmetic mean.
  • (mathematics) Any function of multiple variables that satisfies certain properties and yields a number representative of its arguments; or, the number so yielded; a measure of central tendency.
  • * 1997 , Angus Deaton, The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy , ] World Bank Publications, ISBN 9780801852541, [http://books.google.com/books?id=5Lp_p6bLD2IC&pg=PA51&dq=mean page 51:
  • Note that (1.41) is simply the probability-weighted mean without any explicit allowance for the stratification; each observation is weighted by its inflation factor and the total divided by the total of the inflation factors for the survey.
  • * 2002 , Clifford A. Pickover, The Mathematics of Oz: Mental Gymnastics from Beyond the Edge , Cambridge University Press, ISBN 9780521016780, page 246:
  • Luckily, even though the arithmetic mean' is unusable, both the harmonic and geometric ' means settle to precise values as the amount of data increases.
  • * 2003 , P. S. Bullen, Handbook of Means and Their Inequalities , Springer, ISBN 978-1-4020-1522-9, page 251:
  • The generalized power means' include power '''means''', certain Gini '''means''', in particular the counter-harmonic ' means .
  • (mathematics) Either of the two numbers in the middle of a conventionally presented proportion, as 2'' and ''3'' in ''1:2=3:6 .
  • * 1825 , John Farrar, translator, An Elementary Treatise on Arithmetic by Silvestre François Lacroix, third edition, page 102,
  • ...if four numbers be in proportion, the product of the first and last, or of the two extremes, is equal to the product of the second and third, or of the two means .
  • * 1999 , Dawn B. Sova, How to Solve Word Problems in Geometry , McGraw-Hill, ISBN 007134652X, page 85,
  • Using the means'-extremes property of proportions, you know that the product of the extremes equals the product of the '''means'''. The ratio ''t''/4 = 5/2 can be rewritten as ''t'':4 = 5:2, in which the extremes are ''t'' and 2, and the ' means are 4 and 5.
  • * 2007 , Carolyn C. Wheater, Homework Helpers: Geometry , Career Press, ISBN 1564147215, page 99,
  • In \frac{18}{27}=\frac23, the product of the means is 2\cdot27, and the product of the extremes is 18\cdot3. Both products are 54.
    Hypernyms
    * (statistics) measure of central tendency, measure of location, sample statistic
    Coordinate terms
    * (statistics) median, mode
    See also
    * (statistics) spread, range
    Derived terms
    * arithmetic mean * * Chisini mean * contraharmonic mean * generalised f -mean * generalized f -mean * geometric mean * harmonic mean * Heronian mean * * logarithmic mean * power mean * quadratic mean * quasi-arithmetic mean * root mean square

    Etymology 4

    From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) ; see (l).

    Verb

  • To complain, lament.
  • To pity; to comfort.
  • * 1485 , Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur , Book XII:
  • Anone he meaned hym, and wolde have had hym home unto his ermytage.

    Statistics

    *

    Anagrams

    * (l), (l), (l), (l), (l), (l), (l), (l) English irregular verbs English terms with multiple etymologies 1000 English basic words ----