medie

Forms

medie f (plural medii)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowed from Latin media, the feminine of medius (“middle”) used as a noun.^[1][2][3][4] Scriban and the Romanian Wiktionary instead treat it as a Romanian formation on the adjective mediu, and Scriban compares French moyenne beside moyen.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Damé's Romanian–French dictionary of 1893–1895 records the noun with the French equivalent moyenne “average”, with the plural medii.^[7] None of the dictionaries consulted dates an earlier record.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

Scriban defined it in 1939 both as the value lying between other quantities and as the number each part of a sum would have if all the parts were equal; he also recorded media proporțională, the length that stands between two given lengths in a proportion.^[5] Șăineanu's dictionary glossed it simply as “middle number, middle quantity”.^[8]

The school sense, a pupil's average mark, is given by the dictionaries of the 1950s and later.^[9][2] The adverbial phrase în medie “on average” is recorded in the same period.^[9][4]

Timeline

• 1893–1895 – medie “average”, with the plural medii, in Damé's dictionary.^[7]
• 1929 – “middle number, middle quantity” in Șăineanu's dictionary.^[8]
• 1939 – the mathematical senses and media proporțională in Scriban.^[5]
• 1955–1957 – the pupil's average mark and the phrase în medie in the DLRLC.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The average or mean value of several quantities: medie aritmetică “arithmetic mean”, the sum divided by the number of terms;^[2][3][9] medie geometrică “geometric mean”, the root of their product.^[2][3][9]
2. A pupil's or student's average mark, the sum of the marks divided by their number: A terminat anul cu media nouă. “She finished the year with an average of nine.”^[2][4][9]

Related words

• mediu

Usage notes

În medie means “on average, taking one with another”.^[9][4] The word is pronounced in three syllables, me-di-e.^[9][4]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Marcu, Florin; Maneca, Constant (1986), Dicționar de neologisme, 3rd ed., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România, p. s.v. medie
3. ^ a b c Marcu, Florin (2000), Marele dicționar de neologisme, București: Saeculum Vizual, p. s.v. medie
4. ^ a b c d e Academia Română, Institutul de Lingvistică „Iorgu Iordan – Al. Rosetti” (2002), Noul dicționar explicativ al limbii române, București: Litera Internațional, p. s.v. medie
5. ^ a b c Scriban, August (1939), Dicționaru limbii românești (etimologii, înțelesuri, exemple, citațiuni, arhaizme, neologizme, provincializme), Iași: Presa Bună, p. 793
6. ^ Wikționar (Romanian Wiktionary), ro.wiktionary.org
7. ^ a b c Damé, Frédéric (1893–1895), Nouveau dictionnaire roumain-français, 4 vols., Bucarest: Imprimerie de l'État, p. s.v. medie
8. ^ a b Șăineanu, Lazăr (1929), Dicționar universal al limbei române, 6th ed., Craiova: Scrisul Românesc, p. 392
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Macrea, Dimitrie; Petrovici, Emil (coord.) (1955–1957), Dicționarul limbii romîne literare contemporane, 4 vols., București: Editura Academiei Republicii Populare Romîne, p. 3, 50