n. [ OF. average, LL. averagium, prob. fr. OF. aver, F. avoir, property, horses, cattle, etc.; prop. infin., to have, from L. habere to have. Cf. F. avérage small cattle, and avarie (perh. of different origin) damage to ship or cargo, port dues. The first meaning was perhaps the service of carting a feudal lord's wheat, then charge for carriage, the contribution towards loss of things carried, in proportion to the amount of each person's property. Cf. Aver, n., Avercorn, Averpenny. ] 1. (OLd Eng. Law) That service which a tenant owed his lord, to be done by the work beasts of the tenant, as the carriage of wheat, turf, etc. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. [ Cf. F. avarie damage to ship or cargo. ] (Com.) (a) A tariff or duty on goods, etc. [ Obs. ] (b) Any charge in addition to the regular charge for freight of goods shipped. (c) A contribution to a loss or charge which has been imposed upon one of several for the general benefit; damage done by sea perils. (d) The equitable and proportionate distribution of loss or expense among all interested. [ 1913 Webster ]

General average, a contribution made, by all parties concerned in a sea adventure, toward a loss occasioned by the voluntary sacrifice of the property of some of the parties in interest for the benefit of all. It is called general average, because it falls upon the gross amount of ship, cargo, and freight at risk and saved by the sacrifice. Kent. --
Particular average signifies the damage or partial loss happening to the ship, or cargo, or freight, in consequence of some fortuitous or unavoidable accident; and it is borne by the individual owners of the articles damaged, or by their insurers. --
Petty averages are sundry small charges, which occur regularly, and are necessarily defrayed by the master in the usual course of a voyage; such as port charges, common pilotage, and the like, which formerly were, and in some cases still are, borne partly by the ship and partly by the cargo. In the clause commonly found in bills of lading, “primage and average accustomed, ” average means a kind of composition established by usage for such charges, which were formerly assessed by way of average. Arnould. Abbott. Phillips. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. A mean proportion, medial sum or quantity, made out of unequal sums or quantities; an arithmetical mean. Thus, if A loses 5 dollars, B 9, and C 16, the sum is 30, and the average 10. [ 1913 Webster ]

4. Any medial estimate or general statement derived from a comparison of diverse specific cases; a medium or usual size, quantity, quality, rate, etc. “The average of sensations.” Paley. [ 1913 Webster ]

5. pl. In the English corn trade, the medial price of the several kinds of grain in the principal corn markets. [ 1913 Webster ]

On an average, taking the mean of unequal numbers or quantities. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. 1. Pertaining to an average or mean; medial; containing a mean proportion; of a mean size, quality, ability, etc.; ordinary; usual; as, an average rate of profit; an average amount of rain; the average Englishman; beings of the average stamp. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. According to the laws of averages; as, the loss must be made good by average contribution. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Averaged (&unr_;); p. pr. & vb. n. Averaging. ] 1. To find the mean of, when sums or quantities are unequal; to reduce to a mean. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To divide among a number, according to a given proportion; as, to average a loss. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. To do, accomplish, get, etc., on an average. [ 1913 Webster ]

v. i. To form, or exist in, a mean or medial sum or quantity; to amount to, or to be, on an average; as, the losses of the owners will average twenty five dollars each; these spars average ten feet in length. [ 1913 Webster ]

A human skull reported, by Prof. J. D. Whitney, as found in 1886 in a Tertiary auriferous gravel deposit, lying below a bed of black lava, in Calaveras County, California. It is regarded as very doubtful whether the skull really belonged to the deposit in which it was found. If it did, it indicates an unprecedented antiquity for human beings of an advanced type. [ Webster 1913 Suppl. ]

n. (Finance) an index of certain stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange, computed by the Dow Jones publishing company as a weighted average of the prices of the common stocks of 30 specific companies classified as "industrial". The Dow Jones Industrial Average is often taken as an indicator of the movement of American stock prices generally, though other indices are maintained, averaging the prices of other stocks, and these often change in opposite directions from those of the DJIA.
Syn. -- DJI, DJIA, Dow, Dow Jones, Dow-Jones Average. [ PJC ]

prop. n. A natural family of herbs or shrubs having milky and often colored juices and capsular fruits.
Syn. -- family Papaveraceae, poppy family. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

a. (Bot.) Of, pertaining to, or resembling, a natural family of plants (Papaveraceae) of which the poppy, the celandine, and the bloodroot are well-known examples. [ 1913 Webster ]

. (Baseball) a measure of the effectiveness of a batter at reaching base and advancing other runners, calculated as the sum of the number of bases reached on each hit, divided by the total number of times at bat. A double counts two bases, a triple three, a home run four. Thus a batter with four singles, two doubles and a triple in 20 official times at bat would have a slugging average of 0.550, and a batting average of 0.350. Also called slugging percentage. Compare batting average. [ PJC ]