Plural of "Average" as a noun? [closed]

I have a sentence lingering in my mind that I read somewhere, but the way I'm remembering it it doesn't sound right:

The averages have the power of invisibility.

Is this correct pluralization of 'average' as a noun?


Solution 1:

If you have one average (of many scores, or of temperatures), then you use the word average in the singular. If you have more than one average (average temperature, average rainfall, average barometric pressure, e.g.), then you could refer to that set of numbers as a set of averages.

There's nothing wrong with the sentence in your question. You could remove the first word, too, if you wanted to refer to averages in general:

Averages have the power of invisibility.

Solution 2:

While average is a general term referring to a central trend, there are several different types, such as mean, median and mode, and, like averages they all take conventional plurals: means, medians, modes.