From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Medium \Me"di*um\, n.; pl. L. {Media}, {E}. {Mediums}. [L.
medium the middle, fr. medius middle. See {Mid}, and cf.
{Medius}.]
1. That which lies in the middle, or between other things;
intervening body or quantity. Hence, specifically:
(a) Middle place or degree; mean.
[1913 Webster]
The just medium . . . lies between pride and
abjection. --L'Estrange.
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(b) (Math.) See {Mean}.
(c) (Logic) The mean or middle term of a syllogism; that
by which the extremes are brought into connection.
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2. A substance through which an effect is transmitted from
one thing to another; as, air is the common medium of
sound. Hence: The condition upon which any event or action
occurs; necessary means of motion or action; that through
or by which anything is accomplished, conveyed, or carried
on; specifically, in animal magnetism, spiritualism, etc.,
a person through whom the action of another being is said
to be manifested and transmitted.
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Whether any other liquors, being made mediums, cause
a diversity of sound from water, it may be tried.
--Bacon.
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I must bring together
All these extremes; and must remove all mediums.
--Denham.
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3. An average. [R.]
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A medium of six years of war, and six years of
peace. --Burke.
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4. A trade name for printing and writing paper of certain
sizes. See {Paper}.
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5. (Paint.) The liquid vehicle with which dry colors are
ground and prepared for application.
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6. (Microbiology) A source of nutrients in which a
microorganism is placed to permit its growth, cause it to
produce substances, or observe its activity under defined
conditions; also called {culture medium} or {growth
medium}. The medium is usually a solution of nutrients in
water, or a similar solution solidified with gelatin or
agar.
[PJC]
7. A means of transmission of news, advertising, or other
messages from an information source to the public, also
called a {news medium}, such as a newspaper or radio; used
mostly in the plural form, i. e. {news media} or {media}.
See 1st {media}[2].
[PJC]
{Circulating medium}, a current medium of exchange, whether
coin, bank notes, or government notes.
{Ethereal medium} (Physics), the ether.
{Medium of exchange}, that which is used for effecting an
exchange of commodities -- money or current
representatives of money.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Culture \Cul"ture\ (k?l"t?r; 135), n. [F. culture, L. cultura,
fr. colere to till, cultivate; of uncertain origin. Cf.
{Colony}.]
1. The act or practice of cultivating, or of preparing the
earth for seed and raising crops by tillage; as, the
culture of the soil.
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2. The act of, or any labor or means employed for, training,
disciplining, or refining the moral and intellectual
nature of man; as, the culture of the mind.
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If vain our toil
We ought to blame the culture, not the soil. --Pepe.
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3. The state of being cultivated; result of cultivation;
physical improvement; enlightenment and discipline
acquired by mental and moral training; civilization;
refinement in manners and taste.
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What the Greeks expressed by their paidei`a, the
Romans by their humanitas, we less happily try to
express by the more artificial word culture. --J. C.
Shairp.
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The list of all the items of the general life of a
people represents that whole which we call its
culture. --Tylor.
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4. (Biol.)
(a) The cultivation of bacteria or other organisms (such
as fungi or eukaryotic cells from mulitcellular
organisms) in artificial media or under artificial
conditions.
(b) The collection of organisms resulting from such a
cultivation.
Note: The growth of cells obtained from multicellular animals
or plants in artificial media is called {tissue
culture}.
[Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC]
Note: The word is used adjectively with the above senses in
many phrases, such as: culture medium, any one of the
various mixtures of gelatin, meat extracts, etc., in
which organisms cultivated; culture flask, culture
oven, culture tube, gelatin culture, plate culture,
etc.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
5. (Cartography) Those details of a map, collectively, which
do not represent natural features of the area delineated,
as names and the symbols for towns, roads, houses,
bridges, meridians, and parallels.
[Webster 1913 Suppl.]
{Culture fluid}, {Culture medium} a fluid in which
microscopic organisms are made to develop, either for
purposes of study or as a means of modifying their
virulence. If the fluid is gelled by, for example, the use
of agar, it then is called, depending on the vessel in
which the gelled medium is contained, a plate, a slant, or
a stab.
[1913 Webster +PJC]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
culture medium
n 1: (bacteriology) a nutrient substance (solid or liquid) that
is used to cultivate micro-organisms [syn: {culture
medium}, {medium}]
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