Emily Dickinson Lexicon

MEAN, n.

1. The middle point or place; the middle rate or degree; mediocrity; medium. Observe the golden mean. There is a mean in all things. Dryden. But no authority of gods or men / Allow of any mean in poesy. Roscommon.
2. Intervening time; interval of time; interim; meantime. And in the mean, vouchsafe her honorable tomb. Spenser. Here is an omission of time or while.
3. Measure; regulation. [Not in use.] Spenser.
4. Instrument; that which is used to effect an object; the medium through which something is done. The virtuous conversation of Christians was a mean to work the conversion of the heathen to Christ. Hooker. In this sense, means, in the plural, is generally used, and often with a definitive and verb in the singular. By this means he had them more at vantage. Bacon. A good character, when established, should not be rested on as an end, but employed as a means of doing good. Atterbury.
5. Means, in the plural, income, revenue, resources, substance or estate, considered as the instrument of effecting any purpose. He would have built a house, but he wanted means. Your means are slender. Shak.
6. Instrument of action or performance. By all means, without fail. Go, by all means. By no means, not at all; certainly not; not in any degree. The wine on this side of the lake is by no means so good as that on the other. Addison. By no manner of means, by no means; not the leant. Burke. By any means, possibly; at all. If by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead. Phil. iii. Meantime, or Meanwhile, in the intervening time. [In this use of these words there is an omission of in or in the; in the meantime.]