median vs middle

median

adj
  • Situated in a middle, central, or intermediate part, section, or range of (something). 

  • In the middle of an organ, structure etc.; towards the median plane of an organ or limb. 

  • Having the median as its value. 

noun
  • A number separating the higher half from the lower half of a data sample, population, or probability distribution. The median of a finite list of numbers can be found by arranging all the observations from lowest value to highest value and picking the middle one (e.g., the median of {3, 3, 5, 9, 11} is 5). If there is an even number of observations, then there is no single middle value; the median is then usually defined to be the mean of the two middle values. 

  • A line segment joining the vertex of triangle to the midpoint of the opposing side. 

  • The area separating two lanes of opposite-direction traffic; the median strip. 

middle

adj
  • Located in the middle; in between. 

  • Pertaining to the middle voice. 

  • Central. 

noun
  • A centre, midpoint. 

  • The part between the beginning and the end. 

  • The middle stump. 

  • The central part of a human body; the waist. 

  • The middle voice. 

How often have the words median and middle occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )