As every 8th grader knows, the word “mean” has multiple meanings.
From Merriam Webster:
There’s the mean that conveys signification or intention, as in “novelty means newness.” Or “she means to win.” It has its origins in Old English and is related to the Old High German word meaning “to have in mind.”
The one that refers to a mathematical average (“the mean temperature”) came to English from medieval French. It derives from the Latin word medianus, which was later borrowed again to give us the related term median. The modern French relative is moyen. This is also the origin of the noun mean, used to mean “average” or used in phrases like “means to an end.”
Finally, there’s the one that most commonly describes something or someone that is unkind or cruel (“mean girls”). And yet, this use of mean as an adjective — without question the most frequently used today — is quite new in English. It was uncommon until around 1900. This unkind newcomer has un-generously displaced the word’s older meanings, nearly to the point of eclipsing them.
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This word’s oldest use comes from its etymological meaning of “common” or “shared” from the Middle English word mene. It was initially used to mean “humble,” “ordinary,” or “inferior.” Mean was used by extension to describe people of humble or non-noble birth, sometimes having the meanings “common” or “lacking distinction.” This is the way mean is used in the King James Bible and in Shakespeare.
Another sense of the word continues the idea of “lacking nobility” or “lacking distinction.” It also adds a moral element, resulting in usage that conveys “lacking dignity or honor,” “unprincipled,” “low,” or “base.” This moral component of the word’s development led in two directions. On the one hand, it came to mean “ungenerous,” “cheap,” or “stingy.” This sense of mean was first entered in a dictionary in 1934: “Characterized by petty selfishness or malice; contemptibly disobliging or unkind; ill-tempered; fractious.” The use of mean for “cruel,” “unkind,” or “harsh” has since become so widespread in American English that we usually find all other uses to seem unusual or archaic – or we misunderstand what authors from earlier centuries intended. Know what I mean, Jelly Bean?
I love this picture so much, I mean to repeat it as often as possible.
No, I’m not just being mean.
And yes, I mean what I say.