(definition)
Definition: The value that has an equal number of values greater and less than it. For an even number of values, it is the mean of the two middle values.
See also mean, mode, midrange, Select, select and partition.
Note: The median is the "middle" value. The median of 1, 1, 3, 50, and 60 is 3 since two elements (1 and 1) are less than it and two elements (50 and 60) are greater. The median of 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, and 4 is 2.5, the mean of 2 and 3.
Author: PEB
If you have suggestions, corrections, or comments, please get in touch with Paul Black.
Entry modified 12 February 2019.
HTML page formatted Wed Mar 13 12:42:46 2019.
Cite this as:
Paul E. Black, "median", in
Dictionary of Algorithms and Data Structures [online], Paul E. Black, ed. 12 February 2019. (accessed TODAY)
Available from: https://www.nist.gov/dads/HTML/median.html