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 $\backslash frac\{18\}\{27\}=\backslash frac23$, the product of the means is $2\backslash cdot27$, and the product of the extremes is $18\backslash cdot3$. Both products are 54.

Noun

(wikipedia force)

Strength or energy of body or mind; active power; vigour; might; capacity of exercising an influence or producing an effect.

:

* (1800-1859)

*:He was, in the full force of the words, a good man.

Power exerted against will or consent; compulsory power; violence; coercion.

*(William Shakespeare), Henry VI, part II

*:which now they hold by force , and not by right

(lb) Anything that is able to make a big change in a person or thing.

A physical quantity that denotes ability to push, pull, twist or accelerate a body which is measured in a unit dimensioned in mass × distance/time² (ML/T²): SI: newton (N); CGS: dyne (dyn)

Something or anything that has the power to produce an effect upon something else.

*{{quote-magazine, date=2012-03, author=(Henry Petroski), volume=100, issue=2, page=112-3

, magazine=(American Scientist) , title= Opening Doors , passage=A doorknob of whatever roundish shape is effectively a continuum of levers, with the axis of the latching mechanism—known as the spindle—being the fulcrum about which the turning takes place. Applying a force tangential to the knob is essentially equivalent to applying one perpendicular to a radial line defining the lever.}}

(lb) A group that aims to attack, control, or constrain.

:

*(William Shakespeare), (Cymbeline)

*:Is Lucius general of the forces ?

*

*:"A fine man, that Dunwody, yonder," commented the young captain, as they parted, and as he turned to his prisoner. "We'll see him on in Washington some day. He is strengthening his forces now against Mr. Benton out there.."

*{{quote-news, year=2004, date=April 15, work=The Scotsman

, title= Morning swoop in hunt for Jodi's killer , passage=For Lothian and Borders Police, the early-morning raid had come at the end one of biggest investigations carried out by the force , which had originally presented a dossier of evidence on the murder of Jodi Jones to the Edinburgh procurator-fiscal, William Gallagher, on 25 November last year.}}

(lb) The ability to attack, control, or constrain.

:

(lb) A magic trick in which the outcome is known to the magician beforehand, especially one involving the apparent free choice of a card by another person.

(lb) Legal validity.

:

(lb) Either unlawful violence, as in a "forced entry ", or lawful compulsion.

Noun

(en noun)

(countable, Northern England) A waterfall or cascade.

* T. Gray

to see the falls or force of the river Kent