mode
1- a manner of acting or doing; method; way: modern modes of transportation.
- a particular type or form of something: Heat is a mode of motion.
- a designated condition or status, as for performing a task or responding to a problem: a machine in the automatic mode.
- Philosophy.
- appearance, form, or disposition taken by a thing, or by one of its essential properties or attributes.
- (in the philosophy of Spinoza) one of the nonessential qualifications of God, contingent upon other modes.Compare attribute(def 9).
- Logic.
- Music. any of various arrangements of the diatonic tones of an octave, differing from one another in the order of the whole steps and half steps; scale.
- Grammar. mood2(def 1).
- Statistics. the value of the variate at which a relative or absolute maximum occurs in the frequency distribution of the variate.
- Petrography. the actual mineral composition of a rock, expressed in percentages by weight.
- Physics. any of the distinct patterns of oscillation that a given periodically varying system can have.
Origin of mode
1Synonyms for mode
See more synonyms for on Thesaurus.commode
2- fashion or style in manners, dress, etc.: He was much concerned to keep up with the latest mode.
- a light gray or drab color.
Origin of mode
2à la mode
- in or according to the fashion.
- Cookery.
- (of pie or other dessert) served with a portion of ice cream, often as a topping: apple pie à la mode.
- (of beef) larded and braised or stewed with vegetables, herbs, etc., and served with a rich brown gravy.
Origin of à la mode
Related Words for mode
status, style, fashion, tone, form, process, quality, technique, system, mechanism, condition, situation, approach, method, procedure, posture, wise, practice, rule, customExamples from the Web for mode
Contemporary Examples of mode
If Hugh Jackman is totally heterosexual, his mode is a confusing—and not in a good, rad way—butch-camp.
Why did it feel important to you to have Rick shift into this mode where he can readily access his brutality?
Belfort, not knowing they were time-release ludes, pops loads of them, and when they kick in, he enters “cerebral palsy” mode.
Why Leonardo DiCaprio, Who Wows in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street,’ Deserves to (Finally) Win An OscarMarlow Stern
February 17, 2014
It was through these explorations that he began capturing himself, just not in “selfie” mode.
After completing the campaign, an “Extinction” mode opens up.
‘Call of Duty: Ghosts’ Review: The Juggernaut Franchise Might Be Drying UpAlec Kubas-Meyer
November 12, 2013
Historical Examples of mode
He himself, she learned, had taken no steps to free himself from his present mode of life.
VivietteWilliam J. Locke
We were delighted at a change in our mode of traveling and living.
The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and CaliforniaBrevet Col. J.C. Fremont
Humility, like the artistic, acceptance of all experiences, is merely a mode of manifestation.
De ProfundisOscar Wilde
To the artist, expression is the only mode under which he can conceive life at all.
De ProfundisOscar Wilde
His collar was low for the mode, his gloveless hands were red.
The Bacillus of BeautyHarriet Stark
mode
- a manner or way of doing, acting, or existing
- the current fashion or style
- music
- any of the various scales of notes within one octave, esp any of the twelve natural diatonic scales taken in ascending order used in plainsong, folk song, and art music until 1600
- (in the music of classical Greece) any of the descending diatonic scales from which the liturgical modes evolved
- either of the two main scale systems in music since 1600major mode; minor mode
- logic linguistics another name for modality (def. 3), mood 2 (def. 2)
- philosophy a complex combination of ideas the realization of which is not determined by the component ideas
- that one of a range of values that has the highest frequency as determined statisticallyCompare mean 3 (def. 4), median (def. 6)
- the quantitative mineral composition of an igneous rock
- physics one of the possible configurations of a travelling or stationary wave
- physics one of the fundamental vibrations
Word Origin for mode
à la mode
- fashionable in style, design, etc
- (of meats) braised with vegetables in wine
- mainly US and Canadian (of desserts) served with ice cream
Word Origin for à la mode
Word Origin and History for mode
"manner," late 14c., "kind of musical scale," from Latin modus "measure, extent, quantity; proper measure, rhythm, song; a way, manner, fashion, style" (in Late Latin also "mood" in grammar and logic), from PIE root *med- "to measure, limit, consider, advise, take appropriate measures" (see medical). Meaning "manner in which a thing is done" first recorded 1660s.
"current fashion," 1640s, from French mode "manner, fashion, style" (15c.), from Latin modus "manner" (see mode (n.1)).
a la mode
1640s, from French à la mode (15c.), literally "in the fashion" (see mode (n.2)). In 17c., sometimes nativized as all-a-mode. Cookery sense of a dessert served with ice cream is 1903, American English.
mode
(mōd)- The value or item occurring most frequently in a series of observations or statistical data.
- The number or range of numbers in a mathematical set that occurs the most frequently.
mode
- The value that occurs most frequently in a data set. For example, in the set 125, 140, 172, 164, 140, 110, the mode is 140. Compare arithmetic mean average median.
mode
In statistics, the most frequently appearing value in a set of numbers or data points. In the numbers 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 4, 9, 6, 8, and 6, the mode is 6, because it appears more often than any of the other figures. (See average; compare mean and median.)