Other forms: modes
In statistics, the mode is the value that appears most often in a set. The mode is four, calculate the mode, a bimodal distribution.
It is one of the three averages, alongside the mean and the median, and it is the only one that works for non-numerical data — the most common eye colour has a mode and no mean. A set can have two modes or none. Elsewhere, a mode is a way of operating: aeroplane mode, dark mode, a mode of transport. In music, a mode is a type of scale.
1nounmodeThe value that appears most often in a set.
“The mode is four and the mean is about five and a half.”
2nounoperatingA way of operating or doing something.
“The phone had been in aeroplane mode for about two days.”
mode is a most common value, or a manner.
Latin modus means a measure or manner — the same root as moderate, model, modern and modify. The statistical sense was named in 1895 by Karl Pearson, who also coined standard deviation.
Proto-Indo-European
*med-
Latin
modus — measure, due measure, rhythm, melody
Old French
mode
English, today
mode
From Old French mode (masculine), from Latin modus (“measure, due measure, rhythm, melody”). a doublet of modus.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA