Mode

How to spell mode

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mode

What does mode mean?

1. nounA particular way or manner in which something happens, operates, or is done.
2. nounThe value that appears most frequently in a set of data.
3. nounA prevailing fashion, style, or custom of a particular time.

Mode in a sentence

• The printer switched to a quiet mode overnight.

• To find the mode, count which result occurs most often.

• Slim lapels were very much the mode that season.

• Working from home became her preferred mode of getting things done.

• The survey mode was age thirty, since more respondents gave that figure than any other.

• Long hemlines came back into mode during the 1970s.

Where does mode come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin modus, which literally meant a measure, a size, or a due limit, and by extension the manner or way in which something is done. Romans used modus for everything from the dimensions of a thing to the proper bounds of behaviour, which is why ideas of moderation and measured conduct cluster around the same root. English took the word in by two routes: the older sense of manner or method came through Old French mode in the late medieval period, while the fashion sense was reinforced by a fresh borrowing of French mode in the seventeenth century. The very same modus lies behind a large family of relatives, including model, moderate, modify, and modern, all of which keep the core notion of measuring or fitting something to a standard. The tidy four-letter spelling hides no trap once you remember that the silent final e simply marks the long vowel, exactly as it does in code and node.

How the word is built

• mod (from Latin modus: measure, manner)
• -e (silent terminal vowel)