average

noun · adjective · verb

Simple meaning

typical or ordinary, or the middle number calculated from several

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

averij

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IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈævɚɪdʒ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

mathematics
The arithmetic mean.
statistics
Any measure of central tendency, especially any mean, the median, or the mode.
lawmarine
Financial loss due to damage to transported goods; compensation for damage or loss.

adjective

Neither very good nor very bad; rated somewhere in the middle of all others in the same category.
informal
Not outstanding, not good, banal; bad or poor.
Typical.

verb

transitive
Over a period of time or across members of a population, to have or generate a mean value of.
transitive
To divide among a number, according to a given proportion.
transitive
To compute the average of, especially the arithmetic mean.
Amount to or come to an average, without loss or gain
“The number of hours I work per work averages out to 40.”
Achieve or reach on average
intransitive
To be, generally or on average.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty: A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency: Very Common
Typical Use: Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

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More ways to use average

“He is about average in height.”noun

Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

average costmoving averageaverage numberaverage valueaverage ageaverage ratenational averageaverage size

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

average costnounCompound term
Total cost for all units bought (or produced) divided by the number of units.
average outverbCompound term
Compute the average of.
batting averagenounCompound term
A measure of a batter's performance.
dow-jones industrial averagenounCompound term
An indicator of stock market prices.
earned run averagenounCompound term
A measure of a pitcher's effectiveness.
fielding averagenounCompound term
A measure of a fielder's performance.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

noun

Sense: arithmetic mean

meanmedian

adjective

Sense: neither very good nor very bad

normal

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.