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median

- 16 dictionary results

me⋅di⋅an

  [mee-dee-uhn]
Use median in a Sentence
–adjective
1. noting or pertaining to a plane dividing something into two equal parts, esp. one dividing an animal into right and left halves.
2. situated in or pertaining to the middle; medial.
–noun
3. Arithmetic, Statistics. the middle number in a given sequence of numbers, taken as the average of the two middle numbers when the sequence has an even number of numbers: 4 is the median of 1, 3, 4, 8, 9.
4. Geometry. a straight line from a vertex of a triangle to the midpoint of the opposite side.
5. Also called midpoint. a vertical line that divides a histogram into two equal parts. Compare central tendency.
6. median strip.
Origin:
1535–45; < L mediānus in the middle. See medium, -an

Related forms:
me⋅di⋅an⋅ly, adverb

Me⋅di⋅an

  [mee-dee-uhn]
–adjective
1. of or pertaining to Media, the Medes, or their language.
–noun
2. a Mede.
3. the Iranian language of ancient Media, contemporaneous with Old Persian.
Origin:
1595–1605; Medi(a) + -an

median strip

 
–noun
a paved, planted, or landscaped strip in the center of a highway that separates lanes of traffic going in opposite directions.
Also called medial strip, median.

Origin:
1945–50
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To median
Me·di·a   (mē'dē-ə)   
An ancient country of southwest Asia in present-day northwest Iran. Settled by an Indo-European people, it became part of the Assyrian Empire and was conquered c. 550 B.C. by Cyrus the Great, who added it to the Persian Empire.
Me'di·an adj. & n.
me·di·an   (mē'dē-ən)   
adj.  
  1. Relating to, located in, or extending toward the middle.
  2. Anatomy Of, relating to, or situated in or near the plane that divides a bilaterally symmetrical animal into right and left halves; mesial.
  3. Statistics Relating to or constituting the middle value in a distribution.
n.  
    1. A median point, plane, line, or part.
    2. See median strip. See Regional Note at neutral ground.
    3. A line that joins a vertex of a triangle to the midpoint of the opposite side.
    4. The line that joins the midpoints of the nonparallel sides of a trapezoid.
  2. Statistics The middle value in a distribution, above and below which lie an equal number of values.
  3. Mathematics
    1. A line that joins a vertex of a triangle to the midpoint of the opposite side.
    2. The line that joins the midpoints of the nonparallel sides of a trapezoid.

[Latin mediānus, from medius, middle; see medhyo- in Indo-European roots.]
me'di·an·ly adv.
median strip  
n.   Eastern, Midwestern, & Southern U.S.
The dividing area, either paved or landscaped, between opposing lanes of traffic on some highways. Also called median; also called regionally boulevard, mall1, medial strip, meridian, neutral ground. See Regional Note at neutral ground.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

Median

Me"di*an\, a. [L. medianus, fr. medius middle. See Medial.]

1. Being in the middle; running through the middle; as, a median groove.

2. (Zo["o]l.) Situated in the middle; lying in a plane dividing a bilateral animal into right and left halves; -- said of unpaired organs and parts; as, median coverts.

Median line. (a) (Anat.) Any line in the mesial plane; specif., either of the lines in which the mesial plane meets the surface of the body. (b) (Geom.) The line drawn from an angle of a triangle to the middle of the opposite side; any line having the nature of a diameter.

Median plane (Anat.), the mesial plane.

Median point (Geom.), the point where the three median lines of a triangle mutually intersect.

Median

Me"di*an\, n. (Geom.) A median line or point.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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median

The point in a series at which half of the values or units of the series are higher and half lower.


median

In statistics, the middle value of a set of numbers or data points; half the figures will fall below the median and half above. (See average; compare mean and mode.)

The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition
Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source

median 
1592, from M.Fr. médian, from L. medianus "of the middle," from medius "middle" (see medial). Originally anatomical, of veins, arteries, nerves; mathematical sense "middle number of a series" first recorded 1902; median strip "strip between lanes of a highway" is from 1954.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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Median

The midpoint of the range numbers that are arranged in order of value.

Investopedia Commentary

If there are an even amount of numbers in the series, the median is found by taking the mean of the two numbers in the middle of the distribution. 50% of the numbers will be above the median and 50% will be below. In this odd set of numbers--1, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8,12, 13, 25--the median would be 6 because half of the other numbers are below it, and half are above it. Alternatively if you had the following set of numbers--23 23 24 25 26 28 42 44--the median would be 25.5 (26+25/2=25.5).

In certain cases, the median can be a good way to determine an approximate average, especially when dealing with a set of numbers that could otherwise be skewed by outliers, such as the number 25 in the first set.

See also: Arithmetic Mean Average, Distribution, Harmonic Average, Kurtosis, Moving Average, Skewness

Investopedia.com. Copyright © 1999-2005 - All rights reserved. Owned and Operated by Investopedia Inc.
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Main Entry: 1me·di·an
Pronunciation: 'mEd-E-&n
Function: noun
1 : a medial part (as a vein or nerve)
2 a : a value in an ordered set of values below and above which there is an equal number of values or which is the arithmetic mean of the two middle values if there is no one middle number b : a vertical line that divides the histogram of a frequency distribution into two parts of equal area

Main Entry: 2median
Function: adjective
: situated in the middle; specifically : lying in a plane dividing a bilateral animal into right andleft halves
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
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median me·di·an (mē'dē-ən)
adj.

  1. Relating to, located in, or extending toward the middle.
  2. Of, relating to, or situated in or near the plane that divides a bilaterally symmetrical animal into right and left halves; mesial.
  3. Of, relating to, or constituting the middle value in a distribution.
n.
  1. A median point, plane, line, or part.
  2. The middle value in a distribution, above and below which lie an equal number of values.

The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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median   (mē'dē-ən)  Pronunciation Key 
  1. In a sequence of numbers arranged from smallest to largest:
    1. The middle number, when such a sequence has an odd number of values. For example, in the sequence 3, 4, 14, 35, 280, the median is 14.
    2. The average of the two middle numbers, when such a sequence has an even number of values. For example, in the sequence 4, 8, 10, 56, the median is 9 (the average of 8 and 10). Compare arithmetic mean, average, mode.
  2. A line joining a vertex of a triangle to the midpoint of the opposite side.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary
Copyright © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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