vidutis

Vidutis is a Lithuanian noun that appears in older or regional language as a way to refer to the middle or central point in a series or in a set. In standard contemporary Lithuanian, the most common term for an average or mean value in statistics is vidurkis, while the adjective form vidutinis is used to describe something that is average or middle in quality, size, or extent. The adverb vidutiniškai means “on average.”

In modern usage, vidutis itself is relatively rare and is usually encountered in historical texts, dialectal speech, or as a variant form in some dictionaries. When people speak or write about averages today, they more typically use vidurkis for the mathematical mean, or they use vidutinis/vidutinė/vidutiniai as adjectives to describe typical or median characteristics, such as vidutinis atlyginimas (average salary) or vidutinė temperatūra (average temperature). The adverbial expression vidutiniškai is standard for “on average.”

Origin and related terms: vidutis shares a semantic field with vidurys and viduriškas, all drawing on the same root connected to the idea of “middle” or “center.” Related linguistic forms include the noun vidurkis (arithmetic mean), the adjective vidutinis (average), and the adverb vidutiniškai (on average).

See also: Lithuanian language, statistics terminology, vidurkis, vidutinė/vidutinis (average), vidutiniškai (on average).