Noun: means
| Singular | means |
| Plural | means |
Sample Sentences
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She treated him as a means to an end.
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A car is a means of transport.
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There are two means of egress out of the building.
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And by this means also he had them the more at vantage, being tired and harassed with a long march; and more at mercy, being cut off far from their country, and therefore not able by any sudden flight to get to retreat, and to renew their troubles. [1622, Francis Bacon, History of the reign of King Henry VII:]
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Our hope in him is dead: let us return,
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And strain what other means is left unto us
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In our dear peril. [1623, William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, act V, scene 1:]
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In his submission to the UN, [Christof] Heyns points to the experience of drones. Unmanned aerial vehicles were intended initially only for surveillance, and their use for offensive purposes was prohibited, yet once strategists realised their perceived advantages as a means of carrying out targeted killings, all objections were swept out of the way. [2013 June 7, Ed Pilkington, “‘Killer robots’ should be banned in advance, UN told”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 6:]
Nouns inflected like means
cement works,
Old World ROM,
mythopoetics,
zhenniao,
ichimon,
seinen,
sedoka,
semese,
sentai,
senryū,
senbei,
whapuku,
whapuka,
selbri,
Cinghalese,
sayori,
sansho,
sanies,
sanmai,
sangza, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
From mean (“method or course of action used to achieve some result”). Compare French moyens, German Mittel. See: German Nouns '
Mittel'.