median

English

/ˈmiːdɪən/, /ˈmiːdi.ən/

noun
Definitions
  • (anatomy) A central vein or nerve, especially the median vein or median nerve running through the forearm and arm.
  • (geometry) A line segment joining the vertex of triangle to the midpoint of the opposing side.
  • (statistics) The number separating the higher half of a data sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half. The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the observations from lowest value to highest value and picking the middle one (e.g., the median of {3, 3, 5, 9, 11} is 5). If there is an even number of observations, then there is no single middle value; the median is then usually defined to be the arithmetic mean of the two middle values.
  • (US) The median strip; the area separating two lanes of opposite-direction traffic.

Etymology

Borrowed from Middle French median derived from Latin medianus (middle, medium) derived from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (middle, between, in the middle, in-between).

Origin

Proto-Indo-European

*médʰyos

Gloss

middle, between, in the middle, in-between

Concept
Semantic Field

Spatial relations

Ontological Category

Other

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Distribution of cognates by language

Geogrpahic distribution of cognates

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