by any means

Webster's Dictionary (GCIDE)

1.That which is mean, or intermediate, between two extremes of place, time, or number; the middle point or place; middle rate or degree; mediocrity; medium; absence of extremes or excess; moderation; measure. [1913 Webster]

But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance; the virtue of adversity is fortitude.— Bacon.[1913 Webster]

There is a mean in all things.— Dryden.[1913 Webster]

The extremes we have mentioned, between which the wellinstracted Christian holds the mean, are correlatives.— I. Taylor.[1913 Webster]

2.(Math.) A quantity having an intermediate value between several others, from which it is derived, and of which it expresses the resultant value; usually, unless otherwise specified, it is the simple average, formed by adding the quantities together and dividing by their number, which is called an arithmetical mean. A geometrical mean is the nth root of the product of the n quantities being averaged. [1913 Webster]

3.That through which, or by the help of which, an end is attained; something tending to an object desired; intermediate agency or measure; necessary condition or coagent; instrument. [1913 Webster]

Their virtuous conversation was a mean to work the conversion of the heathen to Christ.— Hooker.[1913 Webster]

You may be able, by this mean, to review your own scientific acquirements.— Coleridge.[1913 Webster]

Philosophical doubt is not an end, but a mean.— Sir W. Hamilton.[1913 Webster]

Note: In this sense the word is usually employed in the plural form means, and often with a singular attribute or predicate, as if a singular noun. [1913 Webster]

By this means he had them more at vantage.— Bacon.[1913 Webster]

What other means is left unto us.— Shak.[1913 Webster]

4.pl. Hence: Resources; property, revenue, or the like, considered as the condition of easy livelihood, or an instrumentality at command for effecting any purpose; disposable force or substance. [1913 Webster]

Your means are very slender, and your waste is great.— Shak.[1913 Webster]

5.(Mus.) A part, whether alto or tenor, intermediate between the soprano and base; a middle part. [Obs.] [1913 Webster]

The mean is drowned with your unruly base.— Shak.[1913 Webster]

6.Meantime; meanwhile. [Obs.] --Spenser. [1913 Webster]

7.A mediator; a go-between. [Obs.] --Piers Plowman. [1913 Webster]

He wooeth her by means and by brokage.— Chaucer.[1913 Webster]

By all means, certainly; without fail; as, go, by all means.

By any means, in any way; possibly; at all. [1913 Webster]

If by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead.— Phil. iii. ll.[1913 Webster]

By no means, or By no manner of means, not at all; certainly not; not in any degree. [1913 Webster]

The wine on this side of the lake is by no means so good as that on the other.— Addison.[1913 Webster]

WordNet 3.0