mezzanine
English
WOTD – 20 August 2022
Etymology
| PIE word |
|---|
| *médʰyos |
A mezzanine (noun sense 1.1; left) in a bookshop in São Paulo, Brazil.
A mezzanine (noun sense 1.1) made of structural steel used for industrial storage.
The noun is borrowed from French mezzanine, and from its etymon Italian mezzanino, from mezzano (“(adjective) middle; (noun) go-between”) + -ino (diminutive suffix).[1] Mezzano is derived from Latin mediānus (“central, middle”, adjective), from medius (“mid, middle”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“middle”)) + -ānus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’).
The adjective and verb are derived from the noun.
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈmɛzəniːn/, /ˌmɛzəˈniːn/, /ˈmɛtsə-/
Audio (Southern England) (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /ˈmɛzˌnin/, /ˌmɛzˈnin/, /ˈmɛzəˌnin/, /ˌmɛzəˈnin/
- Rhymes: (some pronunciations) -iːn
- Hyphenation: mez‧zan‧ine
Noun
mezzanine (plural mezzanines)
- (architecture)
- An intermediate floor or storey in between the main floors of a building; specifically, one that is directly above the ground floor which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, and so resembles a large balcony overlooking the ground floor; an entresol.
- On our way to the top floor, we stopped at the mezzanine.
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 17: Ithaca]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], OCLC 560090630, part III [Nostos], page 666:
- [W]ater closet on mezzanine provided with opaque singlepane oblong window, tipup seat, bracket lamp, brass tierod brace, armrests, footstool and artistic oleograph on inner face of door: […]
- 2019 November 21, Samanth Subramanian, “How our home delivery habit reshaped the world”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, ISSN 0261-3077, OCLC 229952407, archived from the original on 11 July 2022:
- In these sheds, individual products rest on short racks, so they can be reached more easily by employees who pick and box orders. In order to fit more racks, companies put in several mezzanine levels. As a result, the sheds rise taller: 21 metres, compared to B2B’s 15 metres.
- 2020 December 2, Paul Bigland, “My weirdest and wackiest Rover yet”, in Rail, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire: Bauer Media, ISSN 0953-4563, OCLC 999467860, page 68:
- On arrival at Birmingham New Street, I make my way upstairs to the mezzanine to get shots of an almost deserted concourse, polka-dotted with social distancing circles like some strange board-game.
- (by extension) An apartment, room, etc., on such an intermediate floor.
- (Canada, US) The lowest balcony in an auditorium, cinema, theatre, etc.; the dress circle.
- (obsolete)
- Additional flooring laid over a floor to bring it up to some height or level.
- In full mezzanine window: a small window at the height of a mezzanine floor (sense 1.1) or an attic, used to light these floors.
- An intermediate floor or storey in between the main floors of a building; specifically, one that is directly above the ground floor which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building, and so resembles a large balcony overlooking the ground floor; an entresol.
- (theater, obsolete) A floor under the stage, from which contrivances such as traps are worked.
Derived terms
- mezzanine board
- mezzanine capital
- mezzanine debt
- mezzanine financing
- mezzanine floor
Translations
intermediate floor or storey in between the main floors of a building; specifically, one that is directly above the ground floor which does not extend over the whole floorspace of the building
|
apartment, room, etc., on such an intermediate floor
lowest balcony in an auditorium, etc.
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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Adjective
mezzanine (not comparable)
- (banking, business) Characteristic of or relating to high-interest loans which have no collateral, and are regarded as intermediate in nature, ranking above equity but below secured loans.
- (engineering) Fulfilling an intermediate or secondary function.
- To make interconnections easier, we added a mezzanine PCB.
Translations
characteristic of or relating to high-interest loans which have no collateral
fulfilling an intermediate or secondary function
Verb
mezzanine (third-person singular simple present mezzanines, present participle mezzanining, simple past and past participle mezzanined)
- (transitive) To fit (a building or other place) with a mezzanine floor.
References
- “mezzanine, n. and adj.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2022; “mezzanine, n. and adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading
mezzanine on Wikipedia.Wikipedia - mezzanine (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
French
Etymology
| PIE word |
|---|
| *médʰyos |
Borrowed from Italian mezzanino, from mezzano (“(adjective) middle; (noun) go-between”) + -ino (diminutive suffix). Mezzano is derived from Latin mediānus (“central, middle”, adjective), from medius (“mid, middle”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“middle”)) + -ānus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /mɛ(d).za.nin/, /me(d).za.nin/
Audio (file)
Noun
mezzanine f (plural mezzanines)
- (architecture) mezzanine; entresol
Descendants
- → English: mezzanine
Further reading
- “mezzanine”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.