According to the fittest style of lofty, mean, or lowly.
Milton.
3. (Math.) Average; having an intermediate value between two extremes,
or between the several successive values of a variable quantity during
one cycle of variation; as, mean distance; mean motion; mean solar day.
Mean distance (of a planet from the sun) (Astron.), the average of the
distances throughout one revolution of the planet, equivalent to the
semi-major axis of the orbit. -- Mean error (Math. Phys.), the average
error of a number of observations found by taking the mean value of the
positive and negative errors without regard to sign. -- Mean-square
error, or Error of the mean square (Math. Phys.), the error the square
of which is the mean of the squares of all the errors; -- called also,
especially by European writers, mean error. -- Mean line. (Crystallog.)
Same as Bisectrix. -- Mean noon, noon as determined by mean time. --
Mean proportional (between two numbers) (Math.), the square root of
their product. -- Mean sun, a fictitious sun supposed to move uniformly
in the equator so as to be on the meridian each day at mean noon. --
Mean time, time as measured by an equable motion, as of a perfect
clock, or as reckoned on the supposition that all the days of the year
are of a mean or uniform length, in contradistinction from apparent
time, or that actually indicated by the sun, and from sidereal time, or
that measured by the stars.
Mean, n. 1. That which is mean, or intermediate, between two extremes
of place, time, or number; the middle point or place; middle rate or
degree; mediocrity; medium; absence of extremes or excess; moderation;
measure.
But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance; the
virtue of adversity is fortitude.
Bacon.
There is a mean in all things.
Dryden.
The extremes we have mentioned, between which the wellinstracted
Christian holds the mean, are correlatives.