Old English mæne, shortening of gemǣne, of Germanic origin, from an Indo-European root shared by Latin communis ‘common’. The original sense was ‘common to two or more people’, later ‘inferior in rank’, leading to mean and a sense ‘ignoble, small-minded’, from which mean and mean (which became common in the 19th century) arose.

Middle English: from Old French meien, from Latin medianus ‘middle’ (see median).