mode

¹ American  

[mohd] / moʊd /

noun

1. a manner of acting or doing; method; way.

   modern modes of transportation.

2. a particular type or form of something.

   Heat is a mode of motion.

3. a designated condition or status, as for performing a task or responding to a problem.

   a machine in the automatic mode.

4. Philosophy.

   1. appearance, form, or disposition taken by a thing, or by one of its essential properties or attributes.

   2. (in the philosophy of Spinoza) one of the nonessential qualifications of God, contingent upon other modes.

5. Logic.

   1. modality.

   2. mood.

6. 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; a type or variation of a scale.

7. Grammar. mood.

8. Statistics. the value of the variate at which a relative or absolute maximum occurs in the frequency distribution of the variate.

9. Petrography. the actual mineral composition of a rock, expressed in percentages by weight.

10. Physics. any of the distinct patterns of oscillation that a given periodically varying system can have.

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mode ² American  

[mohd] / moʊd /

noun

1. fashion or style in manners, dress, etc..

   He was much concerned to keep up with the latest mode.

2. a light gray or drab color.

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adjective

1. see à la mode.

mode British  

/ məʊd /

noun

1. a manner or way of doing, acting, or existing

2. the current fashion or style

3. music

   1. 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

   2. (in the music of classical Greece) any of the descending diatonic scales from which the liturgical modes evolved

   3. either of the two main scale systems in music since 1600

      major mode

      minor mode

4. logic linguistics another name for modality mood 2

5. philosophy a complex combination of ideas the realization of which is not determined by the component ideas

6. that one of a range of values that has the highest frequency as determined statistically Compare mean 3 median

7. the quantitative mineral composition of an igneous rock

8. physics one of the possible configurations of a travelling or stationary wave

9. physics one of the fundamental vibrations

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mode Scientific  

/ mōd /

1. 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.

2. Compare arithmetic mean average median

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mode Cultural  

1. 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.)

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Usage

What’s the difference between mode, median, mean, and average? In the context of mathematics and statistics, the mode of a set of values is the most frequently repeated value in the set. In contrast, the median is the middle number in a set of values when those values are arranged from smallest to largest. The word mean refers to what’s informally called the average—the sum of a set of values divided by the number of values. The word average is of course also very commonly used in more general ways. In math, though, it’s helpful to use more specific terms when determining the most representative or common value in a set of numbers. To illustrate the difference, let’s look at an example set of seven values: 2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9. The mode is simply the value that shows up the most. In the example set, the mode is 3, since it occurs twice and all the other values occur only once. To get the mean of this set, you’d add up all the values (2+3+3+4+6+8+9=35) and then divide that total by the number of values (7), resulting in a mean of 5. This is what most people are referring to when they refer to the average of some set of numbers. To find the median, you have to find the one that’s sequentially in the middle. In a set of seven numbers arranged in increasing value, the median is the fourth number (since there are three before and three after). In this set (2, 3, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9), the median is 4. When a set has an even number of values, the median is the mean of the two middle values. Want to learn more? Read the full breakdown of the difference between mode, median, mean, and average.

Related Words

See method.

Etymology

Origin of mode¹

First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English mod(e), from Old French or directly from Latin modus “measured amount, limit, manner, kind, tone”

Origin of mode²

First recorded in 1635–45; from French, from Latin modus; see origin at mode ¹

Explanation

You can describe the specific style of doing something as your mode. If you're in vacation mode, for example, it might mean you say everything in a super-relaxed voice and spend all of your classes daydreaming. From the Latin modus or "manner," it has been popular since the 1400s. Since the 1600s, people have been using it as another word for "fashionable." The French term "a la mode" literally means "in the fashion," or "fashionable," but is more commonly used to describe as specific way of serving dessert (ice cream on the side).

Example Sentences

New Uber features include Travel Mode for local recommendations, “Shop for Me,” and in-car beverage delivery in select cities.

From Barron's • Apr. 29, 2026

But should it become necessary to defend the honor of the Empire, a chrome button on the steering wheel activates Infinity Mode.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 4, 2026

We’ve already covered the VPN Mode page in the Privacy & Security section, so we’ll focus on the other settings here.

From Salon • Mar. 21, 2026

“But I believe in their mind what they had made up as Beast Mode is this larger-than-life, kind of surreal individual.”

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 13, 2026

The Party shall continue unabated, in full festival Mode, for some few weeks thereafter, or until the belittled Pestilence has run its course through the Assembled.

From "The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume I: The Pox Party" by M.T. Anderson

Related Words

• approach
• condition
• fashion
• form
• mechanism
• method
• posture
• procedure
• process
• quality
• situation
• status
• style
• system
• technique
• tone