average (2) (age = ig)

& a. [In Dut. averij = (1) average, (2) damage; Sw. aver i = average; Dan. haver i (1) average, (2) damage which a ship receives, (3) waste of wares; Ger. avarie, avarei, haferci, haverei = average; Fr. avarie = damage done to a ship, or any damage; O. Fr. average Sp. averia = (1) average, (2) damage done to a ship; Port. avaria = allowance out of freight to the master of a ship for damage sustained, or a contribution by insurers to replace lo es; Low Lat. averagium, in the sense of lo of goods in transportation. Santa Rosa and Marsh derive this from Turk. avaria = aid, a government exaction in the Levant; but Wedgwood considers it to be from Arab. dwar = a defect or flaw.] A. As substantive: I. Ordinary Language: *1. Formerly: The apportionment of lo es by sea or elsewhere in just proportions among different individuals concerned. [A., II. 1.] From this the second sense of the word gradually arose. 2. Now : The medium or mean proportion between certain given quantities. It is ascertained by adding all the quantities together and dividing their sum by the number of them. For instance, to ascertain the average income of a number of parochial clergy, their several incomes must all be added together, and the sum total be divided by the number of clergymen. The more that the extremes vary, the le po ible is it to reason out any individual case from a study of the average. Thus the knowledge of the average age at which people die in America affords no aid whatever towards discovering when any particular person will die, for some do so almost at the moment of birth, and others linger on for nearly, it not even quite, a hundred years. But for finding out general laws, the study of averages is of immense value. The average of qualities is ascertained in a similar way to that of quan tities. and the average of intellect and knowledge was higher among them than among their order generally." Macaulay: Hist. Eng . , ch. xi. "Including the period of the kings, the first decade has an average of forty-six years to each book."- Lewis : Early Rom . Hist ., ch. ii., § 9. On an average: When an average is taken. IL Technically : 1. Law , Nautical and Commercial: (a) Average , or general average : A contribution made by merchants proportionally to the value of the goods which each has on board a particular ve el, to meet the lo which arises when in a storm the goods of one have had to be cast overboard to lighten the ship. "This contribution seems so called because it is so proportioned after the rate of every man's average , or goods carried."- Cowel . (b) Particular average : The sum required to make good any fortuitous injury to the goods belonging to one person. It falls on him or on his insurers. (c) Petty average : An estimate of the probable aggregate amount of various petty charges, as for harbour dues, pilotage, ., which the captain of a ve el must in the first instance pay, but which, of course, do not fall on him ultimately. Formerly they were often met, as they still are, by agreement between the owners of the ve el and those to whom the goods sent in it belongs. Hence in bills of lading the words occur, "paying so much freight, with primage and average accustomed." 2. Corn-trade averages: The medium price of grain in the leading markets. B. As adjective: Ascertained by taking a medium or mean proportion between given quantities. the ascertained differences are chiefly in the average light and heat."-J. 8. Mill: Logic , and ed., vol. ii, ch. xx., p. 108. "Meanwhile, however, the nodes of the rigid ring will retrograde, the general or average tendency of the nodes of every molecule being to do so."- Herschel : Astron., 5th ed., § 645. average-sized, a . Of medium size. "Captain Sulivan informs me that the hide of an average- sized bull weighs forty-seven pounds, Darwin: Voyage round the World , ch. ix. "