verb
definition
To lament.
verb
definition
To intend.
definition
To convey (a meaning).
definition
To have conviction in (something said or expressed); to be sincere in (what one says).
example
Does she really mean what she said to him last night?
definition
To cause or produce (a given result); to bring about (a given result).
example
One faltering step means certain death.
definition
(usually with to) To be of some level of importance.
example
Formality and titles mean nothing in their circle.
adjective
definition
Common; general.
definition
Of a common or low origin, grade, or quality; common; humble.
example
a man of mean parentage / a mean abode
definition
Low in quality or degree; inferior; poor; shabby.
example
a mean appearance / mean dress
definition
Without dignity of mind; destitute of honour; low-minded; spiritless; base.
example
a mean motive
definition
Of little value or worth; worthy of little or no regard; contemptible; despicable.
definition
Ungenerous; stingy; tight-fisted.
example
He's so mean. I've never seen him spend so much as five pounds on presents for his children.
definition
Disobliging; pettily offensive or unaccommodating
definition
Selfish; acting without consideration of others; unkind.
example
It was mean to steal the girl's piggy bank, but he just had to get uptown and he had no cash of his own.
definition
Intending to cause harm, successfully or otherwise; bearing ill will towards another
example
Watch out for her, she's mean. I said good morning to her, and she punched me in the nose.
synonyms
definition
Powerful; fierce; strong
example
It must have been a mean typhoon that levelled this town.
synonyms
definition
Accomplished with great skill; deft; hard to compete with.
example
He hits a mean backhand.
definition
Difficult, tricky.
example
This problem is mean!
Examples of meanest in a Sentence
The paper, the printing, the plates, were all of the meanest description.
Until the close of his life, when he tried to mislead ambassadors as to the state of his health by gorgeous robes, he wore the meanest clothes.
Chubb dwells with special emphasis on the fact that Christ preached the gospel to the poor, and argues, as Tindal had done, that the gospel must therefore be accessible to all men without any need for learned study of evidences for miracles, and intelligible to the meanest capacity.
That he was the greatest tragic and dramatic poet born since the age of Shakespeare, the appearance of Hernani in 1830 made evident for ever to all but the meanest and most perverse of dunces and malignants.
The meanest of the fancies of the mind and the most casual of its whims he regarded as a better warrant for the being of God than any single object of nature.
To all who felt this need Christianity offered high moral ideals, and a tremendous moral enthusiasm, in its devotion to a beloved leader, in its emphasis upon the ethical possibilities of the meanest, and in its faith in a future life of blessedness for the righteous.
By public disputation and private conference, as well as by preaching, he enforced his doctrines, both ecclesiastical and political, and shrank no more from urging what he conceived to be the truth upon the most powerful officers than he did from instructing the meanest followers of the camp. Cromwell disliked his loquacity and shunned his society; but Baxter having to preach before him after he had assumed the Protectorship, chose for his subject the old topic of the divisions and distractions of the church, and in subsequent interviews not only opposed him about liberty of conscience, but spoke in favour of the monarchy he had subverted.
When at last the inevitable revolt came in 1820 he grovelled to the insurgents as he had done to his parents, descending to the meanest submissions while fear was on him, then intriguing and, when detected, grovelling again.
Bunyan's own account of his family as the "meanest and most despised of all the families of the land" must be put down to his habitual self-depreciation.
Seldom has any man united so many and such various gifts in his own person and carried them so easily - a playful wit, a vivid imagination, oratorical and literary eloquence and, above all, a profound knowledge of human nature both male and female, of every class and rank, from the king to the meanest citizen.
The point of Aristotle was to draw a line between rational and other evidences, to insist on the former, and in fact to found a logic of rhetoric. But if in the Rhetoric to Alexander, not he, but Anaximenes, had already performed this great achievement, Aristotle would have been the meanest of mankind; for the logic of rhetoric would have been really the work of Anaximenes the sophist, but falsely claimed by Aristotle the philosopher.