| 1. | a manner of acting or doing; method; way: modern modes of transportation. |
| 2. | a particular type or form of something: Heat is a mode of motion. |
| 3. | a designated condition or status, as for performing a task or responding to a problem: a machine in the automatic mode. |
| 4. | Philosophy.
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| 5. | Logic.
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| 6. | Music. any of various arrangements of the diatonic tones of an octave, differing from one another in the order of the whole steps and half steps; scale. |
| 7. | Grammar. mood 2 (def. 1). |
| 8. | Statistics. the value of the variate at which a relative or absolute maximum occurs in the frequency distribution of the variate. |
| 9. | Petrography. the actual mineral composition of a rock, expressed in percentages by weight. |
| 10. | Physics. any of the distinct patterns of oscillation that a given periodically varying system can have. |

| 1. | the quality or state of being modal. |
| 2. | an attribute or circumstance that denotes mode or manner. |
| 3. | Also called mode. Logic. the classification of propositions according to whether they are contingently true or false, possible, impossible, or necessary. |
| 4. | Medicine/Medical. the application of a therapeutic agent, usually a physical therapeutic agent. |
| 5. | one of the primary forms of sensation, as vision or touch. |
| 1. | Grammar.
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| 2. | Logic. a classification of categorical syllogisms by the use of three letters that name, respectively, the major premise, the minor premise, and the conclusion. |
mode (mōd) n.
[Middle English, tune, from Latin modus, manner, tune. Sense 2, French, from Old French, fashion, manner, from Latin modus; see med- in Indo-European roots.] |
In statistics, the most frequently appearing value in a set of numbers or data points. In the numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 4, 9, 6, 8, and 6, the mode is 6, because it appears more often than any of the other figures. (See average; compare mean and median.)
Mode
A statistical term referring to the most frequently occurring term in a set of numbers.
Investopedia Commentary
For example, in the following set of data--32, 34, 34, 34, 45, 67, 71, 43--the mode is 34 because it is the most common number in the set .
See also: Arithmetic Mean Average, Distribution, Harmonic Average, Median, Skewness
modality mo·dal·i·ty (mō-dāl'ĭ-tē)
n.
A therapeutic method or agent, such as surgery, chemotherapy, or electrotherapy, that involves the physical treatment of a disorder.
Any of the various types of sensation, such as vision or hearing.
mode (mōd)
n.
The value or item occurring most frequently in a series of observations or statistical data.
The number or range of numbers in a mathematical set that occurs the most frequently.
mood 1 (m&oomacr;d)
n.
A state of mind or emotion.
Mode
An object-oriented language.
["The Programming Language Mode: Language Definition and User Guide", J. Vihavainen, C-1987-50, U Helsinki, 1987].
[The Jargon File]
(1994-10-21)
mode
1. A general state, usually used with an adjective describing the state. Use of the word "mode" rather than "state" implies that the state is extended over time, and probably also that some activity characteristic of that state is being carried out. "No time to hack; I'm in thesis mode."
In its jargon sense, "mode" is most often attributed to people, though it is sometimes applied to programs and inanimate objects. In particular, see hack mode, day mode, night mode, demo mode, fireworks mode, and yoyo mode; also chat.
2. More technically, a mode is a special state that certain user interfaces must pass into in order to perform certain functions. For example, in order to insert characters into a document in the Unix editor "vi", one must type the "i" key, which invokes the "Insert" command. The effect of this command is to put vi into "insert mode", in which typing the "i" key has a quite different effect (to wit, it inserts an "i" into the document). One must then hit another special key, "ESC", in order to leave "insert mode". Nowadays, modeful interfaces are generally considered losing but survive in quite a few widely used tools built in less enlightened times.
[The Jargon File]
(1994-12-22)