Medium

The word medium (from Latin, in which it means, "the one in the middle") can have different meanings in different contexts. Usually it has something to do with either a material substance, or a form of mediation.

Titles

• The Medium is an opera by Gian Carlo Menotti.
• Medium is the title of a 2005 American television series.

Medium/media

When medium is used as the singular of media, it can have several different meanings.

In communications and technology:

• A transmission medium.
• A given type of mass media.
• A given type of recording medium
• Interactive media

Scientific meanings:

• In optics, a medium (optics) is something that is homogeneous on lengthscales comparable with the wavelength of the light being considered.
• In biotechnology, a growth medium.
• In chemistry, a solvent.
• In biology, an environment in the middle of which an organism lives; e.g. "fish require an aqueous medium."
• In medicine and paleontology, a substance in which specimens are preserved or displayed.
• In astronomy, the interplanetary medium or the interstellar medium.
• An excitable medium.

In art:

• A liquid with which pigment is mixed by a painter.
• The type of physical material with which a work of art is created. (See: Art techniques and materials.)
• Types of digitally manifested or controlled forms used by artists (text, audio, graphics, animation, video, robotics, aromatics, light, etc.)

Education:

• The medium of instruction is the language used to teach in.

Medium/mediums

Certain other uses of the word medium have the plural mediums.

• In everyday life a size that is in the middle (T-shirts can be S, M, L, XL or XXL) between very little and very large, average or mean in a range of sizes or conditions. Usually, one of only a few sizes, rather than many. For example, items such as clothes or drinks at a fast food restaurant might come in three sizes: small, medium, and large.
• A state that is intermediate between extremes; a middle position; "a happy medium".
• In parapsychology, a spiritual medium is a person who claims to serve as an intermediary between the living and the dead.

Other meanings

• MEDIUM is an Architectural design company based in Montreal Canada.

Quotations

Marshall McLuhan was famous for saying "The medium is the message."

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