Other forms: averaged, averaging, averages
Average is the middle: the ordinary level, neither good nor bad. An average day at work, an average student, a film you call average when you would rather not say it was dull.
In maths the average is what you get by adding the numbers and dividing by how many there are, so the average of four, six and eight is six. That gives average speed, average rainfall, and the phrase 'on average', as in on average he walks three miles a day. It pairs with above and below: above average marks, below average rainfall. As a verb, to average something is to work it out or to reach that level, and the team averages two goals a game. Mind the tone, though, because calling someone's work average is faint praise and everybody hears the criticism in it.
1adjectiveaverageOrdinary; neither very good nor very bad.~7%
“It was an average performance, nothing to remember.”
synonyms: ordinary, middling, unremarkable
2adjectivenumberWorked out by adding amounts and dividing by their number; typical of a whole group.~48%
“The average rainfall here is 600 millimetres a year.”
3nounmeanThe figure you get by adding amounts together and dividing by how many there are.~41%
“The average of the three scores is seventy-one.”
synonyms: mean
4verbreachTo reach, or to work out, an average amount.~4%
“He averages twenty points a game.”
Shares are an estimate: a language model read 27 sentences found in the wild and placed 27 of them on a sense — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.
Average began at sea rather than in maths. Its oldest English sense was a customs duty, and it came from Middle French avarie, 'damage to a ship or cargo', first recorded in twelfth-century Mediterranean trade. Most trace it to Arabic awar, 'fault, blemish, defect', from a verb meaning 'to lose an eye', though the OED prefers Italian avere, 'property, goods'. The English -age was added to match words like damage.
Italian
avere — property, goods
Arabic
عَوَارِيَّة — damaged goods
roa-oit
avaria
Old French
avarie
Middle French
avarie — damage to ship or cargo
English, today
average
Built from
From avarie + -age. unknown The oldest meaning in English is customs duty. Borrowed from Middle French avarie (“damage to ship or cargo”), from Old French avarie, from roa-oit avaria where it is first attested in the 12th century in the context of Mediterranean trade. From there most sources trace it to Arabic عَوَارِيَّة (“damaged goods”), from عَوَار (“fault, blemish, defect, flaw”), from عَوِرَ (“to lose an eye”), but the OED gives it a Romance derivation from Italian avere (“property, goods”) or the like. The English suffix -age was added in analogy to words like damage.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA