of the definitions are as follows: "In a marine sense, average and contribution are synonymous terms"; "a term used in commerce to signify a contribution made by ship, freight and goods on board a ship, in proportion to their respective interests, towards any particular loss or expense sustained for the general safety of the ship and cargo, in order that the particular sufferer may not in the end be a greater loser than the rest of the persons interested in the ship and goods on board. Average, then, understood in this sense, is called general or gross average, because it falls upon the whole or gross amount of the ship, freight and cargo, and also to distinguish it from what is often improperly termed particular average, but which, in truth, means a particular or partial, and not a general loss, and has no affinity to average properly so called." It has further been defined as "the contribution to a general loss".
The term "average" used, then, in a contract of marine insurance, signifies the whole purpose of the contract, namely, averting from the individual adventurer by interposition of the under. writer of all immediate consequences of peril. In other words, it is a rateable contribution to the damage caused to part of the adventure by a common peril.