What Mean Means

What Mean Means What Mean Means What Mean Means By Mark Nichol The verb mean, in the senses of â€Å"destine† â€Å"direct,† â€Å"intend,† and â€Å"signify,† is from the Old English phrase mae nan. To say that someone â€Å"means business† signifies that he or she is earnestly serious about something; to say that someone â€Å"means well† means that the person has good intentions. (One is said to be well-meaning when his or her intentions are good; the person’s actions are said to be well-meant.) Mean has multiple adjectival meanings. Used to convey the ideas of â€Å"base† or â€Å"contemptible,† â€Å"petty† or â€Å"stingy,† or â€Å"malicious† or â€Å"troublesome,† it is from the Old English phrase gemae ne, meaning â€Å"common.† It also has the less negative senses of â€Å"ashamed,† â€Å"dull,† and â€Å"humble† and actually has a positive connotation as a slang synonym for â€Å"effective† or â€Å"excellent† in references to having admirable skills, as in â€Å"He plays a mean saxophone.† (This may derive from a confusion with the idiom â€Å"no mean† followed by a noun or noun phrase, as in â€Å"He’s no mean poker player,† where â€Å"no mean† means â€Å"not average† or â€Å"not inferior.) The expression â€Å"lean and mean† likely derives from the notion of aggressive competitiveness. The adverb meanly means â€Å"in a humble, inferior, or ungenerous manner.† The sense of mean as a synonym for â€Å"average,† â€Å"intermediate,† or â€Å"midway† is ultimately from the Latin term medianus (by way of Anglo-French and Middle English), which is also the source of median. (Mesne, borrowed with an alteration in spelling from Anglo-French, means â€Å"intermediate† or â€Å"intervening† but is used only in legal contexts.) As a noun, mean can refer to something intermediate (as in the mathematical sense), something helpful (as in the phrase â€Å"means to an end†), or resources (as in the sense of having the means to accomplish something). Related idioms include â€Å"by all means† (â€Å"certainly†), â€Å"by means of† (â€Å"through the use of†), and â€Å"by no means† (â€Å"not at all†). The synonymic compounds meantime and meanwhile both derive from the â€Å"intermediate† sense of mean, while mean-spirited alludes to the sense of â€Å"petty.† (The slang term meanie, also spelled meany, refers to a person who is cruel; this usage is considered dated, however, and is now used only in a jocular sense.) To demean, meanwhile, is to debase or put down, while meanness can refer to poverty, stinginess, or weakness. Want to improve your English in five minutes a day? Get a subscription and start receiving our writing tips and exercises daily! Keep learning! Browse the Vocabulary category, check our popular posts, or choose a related post below:Farther vs. Further"Replacement for" and "replacement of"Forming the Comparative of One-syllable Adjectives