Wiktionary

average

English

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Standard deviation chart with average at center

Etymology 1

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From Middle French avarie, from Old French avarie, from Old Italian avaria (which is possibly from Arabic عَوَارِيَّة (ʕawāriyya, “damaged goods”), from عَوَار (ʕawār, “fault, blemish, defect, flaw”), from عَوِرَ (ʕawira, “to lose an eye”)) + English suffix -age.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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average (plural averages)

  1. (mathematics) The arithmetic mean.
    The average of 10, 20 and 24 is (10 + 20 + 24)/3 = 18.
    • 2013 June 1, “Towards the end of poverty”, in The Economist‎[1], volume 407, number 8838, page 11:
      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.
  2. (statistics) Any measure of central tendency, especially any mean, the median, or the mode. [from c. 1735]
  3. (law, marine) Financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss. [from 15th c.]
    • 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.
  4. Customs duty or similar charge payable on transported goods.
  5. Proportional or equitable distribution of financial expense.
  6. (sports) An indication of a player's ability calculated from his scoring record, etc.
    batting average
Usage notes
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  • (mathematics, statistics): 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
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Derived terms
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terms derived from average (noun)
Translations
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Adjective

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average (comparative more average, superlative most average)

  1. (not comparable) Constituting or relating to the average.
    The average age of the participants was 18.5.
  2. 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.
  3. Typical.
    The average family will not need the more expensive features of this product.
    • 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.
  4. (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
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Antonyms
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  • (antonym(s) of “neither very good nor very bad”): extraordinary
Derived terms
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Translations
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Verb

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average (third-person singular simple present averages, present participle averaging, simple past and past participle averaged)

  1. (transitive) To compute the average of, especially the arithmetic mean.
    If you average 10, 20 and 24, you get 18.
  2. (transitive) 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.
    I averaged 75% in my examinations this year.
    • 1961 November, “Talking of Trains: The roller-bearing A1s”, in Trains Illustrated, page 643:
      The five roller-bearing A1s are now averaging 120,000 miles between shopping; this figure is an improvement of about 50 per cent on the norm of other ex-L.N.E. Pacific types.
  3. (transitive) To divide among a number, according to a given proportion.
    to average a loss
  4. (intransitive) 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
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Translations
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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Etymology 2

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From Middle English average, from Medieval Latin averagium, from aver (“horse or other beast of burden, service required from the same”) from Old English eafor (“obligation to carry goods and convey messages for one's lord”) from aferian (“to remove, take away”); + -age.

Noun

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average (plural averages)

  1. (UK, law, 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.
Translations
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German

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Etymology

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Borrowed from English average.

Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): [ˈævəɹɪd͡ʒ], [ˈɛvəʁɪtʃ]
  • Hyphenation: ave‧rage
  • Audio:(file)

Adjective

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average (indeclinable)

  1. (dated, business) average

Further reading

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  • “average” in Duden online
  • “average” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

Middle French

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Etymology

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The Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch derives the word from Old French aver +‎ -age, where aver means "cattle" and is cognate to English aver (“work-horse, working ox, or other beast of burden”).[1] The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1993) compares it to Medieval Latin averagium, from averia (“beast of burden”) (which the Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch in turn links to habeō (“to have”)).

Noun

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average m (plural averages)

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

References

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  • average on Dictionnaire du Moyen Français (1330–1500) (in French)
  • Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l’ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IXe au XVe siècle (1881) (average)
  1. ^ Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “habere”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, volume 4: G H I, page 363
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