Word definition: middle

Etimology


From Middle English middel, from Old English middel, middle (“middle, centre, waist”), from Proto-Germanic *midlą, *midilą, *medalą (“middle”), a diminutive of Proto-Germanic *midjō (“middle, midst”) (compare *midjaz (“mid, middle”, adjective)), from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“between, in the middle, middle”). Cognate with West Frisian middel, Dutch middel, German mittel (“middle”, adjective), German Mittel (“middle, means”, noun), Danish middel (“means, agent, medicine; middle/medium”). Related also to Swedish medel (“means, medium”), Icelandic meðal (“means, medicine”). See also mid.

noun


middle (plural middles)

A centre, midpoint.

The part between the beginning and the end.

(cricket) The middle stump.

The central part of a human body; the waist.

(grammar) The middle voice.

(politics) the center of the political spectrum.

Examples


The middle of a circle is the point which has the same distance to every point of circle.

I woke up in the middle of the night.

In the middle of the marathon, David collapsed from fatigue.

Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.

If I have a diet plan and stick to it, it is easy for me to have control over my middle.

As part of his successful re-election strategy, Clinton began governing from the middle.

Related words


synonyms

(centre): centre, center, midpoint; see also Thesaurus:midpoint

(part between the beginning and the end): centre, center, midst

adjective


middle (not comparable)

Located in the middle; in between.

Central.

(grammar) Pertaining to the middle voice.

Examples


the middle point

middle name, Middle English, Middle Ages

Related words


synonyms

See also Thesaurus:intermediate

related terms

mid-

middle- (in compounds; not a prefix)

middling

verb


middle (third-person singular simple present middles, present participle middling, simple past and past participle middled)

(obsolete) To take a middle view of. [17th–18th c.]

(obsolete, nautical, transitive) To double (a rope) into two equal portions; to fold in the middle. [19th c.]

Examples


And now, to middle the matter between both, it is pity, that the man they favour has not that sort of merit which a person of a mind so delicate as that of Miss Harlowe might reasonably expect in a husband.

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