Media or medium?
media is the plural of medium. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) media is about 4.9 times as common as medium.
What is the difference between media and medium?
| media | medium | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, adjective | noun, adjective, adverb |
| Meaning | plural of medium The middle layer of the wall of a blood vessel or lymph vessel which is composed of connective and muscular tissue One of the major veins of the insect wing, between the radius and the cubitus The means and institutions for publishing and broadcasting information | The material of the surrounding environment, e.g. solid, liquid, gas, vacuum, or a specific substance such as a solvent The materials or empty space through which signals, waves, or forces pass One of several common sizes to which an item may be manufactured, smaller than a large but larger than a small An item labelled or denoted as being that size |
| Example | As a result of the rise of, first, television news and entertainment media and, second, web-based media, traditional print-based media has… | Cable TV is an inexpensive advertising medium |
| Forms | medias, mediae medias | media, mediums |
| Pronunciation | /ˈmiː.di.ə/ /ˈmɛ.di.ə/ /ˈmi.di.ə/ | /ˈmiː.di.əm/ |
| In writing | 200 times per million words | 41 times per million words |
Sources: media and medium in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of media and medium
media
- 1
The middle layer of the wall of a blood vessel or lymph vessel which is composed of connective and muscular tissue
- 2
The means and institutions for publishing and broadcasting information
As a result of the rise of, first, television news and entertainment media and, second, web-based media, traditional print-based media has declined in popularity
- 3
Clipping of multimedia
I have media files stored on an external hard drive
- 4
datedA voiced stop consonant
- 5
The totality of content items (television shows, films, books, photographs, etc.) which are broadcast or published
Fighter pilots are depicted as cool in popular media like Top Gun
- 6
One of the major veins of the insect wing, between the radius and the cubitus
- 7
The journalists and other professionals who comprise the mass communication industry
Some celebrities dislike press conferences, where the media bombards them with questions
- 8
An ant specialized as a forager in a leaf-cutter ant colony
medium
- 1
The material of the surrounding environment, e.g. solid, liquid, gas, vacuum, or a specific substance such as a solvent
- 2
One of several common sizes to which an item may be manufactured, smaller than a large but larger than a small
- 3
Of intermediate size, degree, amount etc
- 4
To a medium extent
- 5
The materials or empty space through which signals, waves, or forces pass
- 6
An item labelled or denoted as being that size
- 7
Of meat, cooked to a point greater than rare but less than well done; typically, so the meat is still red in the centre
- 8
A format for communicating or presenting information
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, media or medium?
media appears 200 times per million words; medium 41 times per million words.
media 200 times per million wordsmedium 41 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search media vs medium?
“media vs medium” is searched about 880 times a month on Google and 50 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“medium vs media”, “media or medium”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.