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.