means

English

Wikipedia

Etymology

See mean.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /miːnz/, SAMPA: /mi:nz/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːnz

Noun

means

1. Plural form of mean.
2. (plurale tantum) Resources; riches.

   a person of means

   independent means

   • 1955, Rex Stout, "Die Like a Dog", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ISBN 0553249592, page 154:

     Some kind of writer. He didn't have to make a living; he had means.

Usage notes

Frequently contrasted with end (“goal”), as in “a means to an end”. Similar contrast is process vs. product.

Synonyms

• wherewithal

Translations

resources

Czech: prostředky (cs) m. pl. Dutch: middelen n, pl German: Mittel (de) n.

Swahili: viombo (sw) Telugu: మూలాధారాలు (te) (muladharalu) Turkish: kaynak (tr)

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

Translations to be checked

Indonesian: alat, peralatan Japanese: 道具 (どうぐ, dōgu), 手段 (しゅだん, shudan)

Verb

means

1. Third-person singular simple present indicative form of mean.

Statistics

• Most common English words before 1923: hundred · believe · white · #282: means · thus · order · near

Anagrams

• amens
• manes
• manse
• mensa, Mensa
• names

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Latin

Etymology

Present active participle of meō (“go along, traverse”)

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA: /ˈme.aːns/

Participle

meāns m., f., and n. (genitive meantis); third declension

1. going along, passing, traversing

Inflection

Number	Singular			Plural
Case \ Gender	M.F.	N.		MM.FF.	NN.
nominative	meāns	meāns		meantēs	meantia
genitive	meantis	meantis		meantium	meantium
dative	meantī	meantī		meantibus	meantibus
accusative	meantem	meāns		meantēs	meantia
ablative	meante1	meante1		meantibus	meantibus
vocative	meāns	meāns		meantēs	meantia

¹ But meantī when used purely as an adjective.