(a) The middle value in a population distribution, above and below which lie an equal number of individual values; midpoint. [CARB, 2000: Glossary of Air Pollution Terms]; (b) A measure of central tendency. The simplest division of a set of measurements is into two parts the lower and the upper half. The point on the scale that divides the group in this way is called the "median." [Last, 1983: A Dictionary of Epidemiology]; (c) The midpoint value obtained by ranking all values from highest to lowest and choosing the value in the middle. The median divides a population into two equal halves. [NIAID, 1997: HIV Vaccine Glossary]