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Mean vs Prove - What's the difference?

mean | prove |

As an adjective mean

is mid, central.

As a noun mean

is middle.

As a verb prove is

.

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 ----

    prove

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) proven, from (etyl) . More at (l), (l), (l).

    Alternative forms

    * proove

    Verb

  • To demonstrate that something is true or viable; to give proof for.
  • {{quote-Fanny Hill, part=3 , Mr. H …, whom no distinctions of that sort seemed to disturb, scarce gave himself or me breathing time from the last encounter, but, as if he had task'd himself to prove that the appearances of his vigour were not signs hung out in vain, in a few minutes he was in a condition for renewing the onset}}
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=August 5, author=Nathan Rabin
  • , title= TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “I Love Lisa” (season 4, episode 15; originally aired 02/11/1993) , passage=Valentine’s Day means different things for different people. For Homer, it means forking over a hundred dollars for a dusty box of chocolates at the Kwik-E-Mart after characteristically forgetting the holiday yet again. For Ned, it’s another opportunity to prove his love for his wife. Most germane to the episode, for Lisa, Valentine’s Day means being the only person in her entire class to give Ralph a Valentine after noticing him looking crestfallen and alone at his desk.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=(Gary Younge)
  • , volume=188, issue=26, page=18, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Hypocrisy lies at heart of Manning prosecution , passage=WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, but could not prove , and would cite as they took to the streets. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies.}}
  • To turn out; to manifest.
  • (copulative) To turn out to be.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 5, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool , passage=He met Luis Suarez's cross at the far post, only for Chelsea keeper Petr Cech to show brilliant reflexes to deflect his header on to the bar. Carroll turned away to lead Liverpool's insistent protests that the ball had crossed the line but referee Phil Dowd and assistant referee Andrew Garratt waved play on, with even a succession of replays proving inconclusive.}}
  • To put to the test, to make trial of.
  • To ascertain or establish the genuineness or validity of; to verify.
  • to prove a will
  • (archaic) To experience
  • * Spenser
  • Where she, captived long, great woes did prove .
  • (printing, dated, transitive) To take a trial impression of; to take a proof of.
  • to prove a page
    Derived terms
    * disprovability * disprovable, disprovably * disprove * disproved, disproven * exception that proves the rule * provability * provable * provably * prove out * prover * proving ground * unprovability * unprovable * unprovably * unprove * unproved * unproven

    Etymology 2

    Simple past form of proove, conjugated in the Germanic strong declension, on the pattern of choose ? chose.

    Verb

    (head)
  • (proove)
  • Statistics

    *