middle
English
Alternative forms
- myddle (obsolete)
Etymology
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”). Related also to Swedish medel (“means, medium”), Icelandic meðal (“means, medicine”). See also mid.
Pronunciation
- (US) IPA(key): /ˈmɪdəl/, [ˈmɪ.ɾɫ̩]
Audio (US) (file) - (UK) IPA(key): /ˈmɪdəl/, [ˈmɪ.dəɫ], [ˈmɪ.dʊ]
- (General Australian) IPA(key): /ˈmɪdəl/, [ˈmɪ̝.dəɫ], [ˈmɪ̝.dʊ], [ˈmɪ̝.ɾ-]
Audio (AU) (file) - (New Zealand) IPA(key): /ˈmɘdɘl/, [ˈmə.dɯ(ɫ)], [ˈmə.ɾ-]
- Rhymes: -ɪdəl
Noun
middle (plural middles)
- A centre, midpoint.
- The middle of a circle is the point which has the same distance to every point of circle.
- The part between the beginning and the end.
- 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients:
- 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.
- I woke up in the middle of the night.
- In the middle of the marathon, David collapsed from fatigue.
-
- (cricket) The middle stump.
- The central part of a human body; the waist.
- Fasting In A Fast World
- If I have a diet plan and stick to it, it is easy for me to have control over my middle.
- Fasting In A Fast World
- (grammar) The middle voice.
Synonyms
- (centre): centre, center, midpoint; see also Thesaurus:midpoint
- (part between the beginning and the end): centre, center, midst
Translations
|
|
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
|
Adjective
middle (not comparable)
- Located in the middle; in between.
- the middle point
- middle name, Middle English, Middle Ages
- Central.
- (grammar) Pertaining to the middle voice.
Synonyms
- See also Thesaurus:intermediate
Derived terms
- anteromiddle
- middlemost
- middleness
- middler
- middlescent
- middlesome
- middleware
- Middle Armenian
- Middle Assamese
- Middle Bengali
- Middle Breton
- Middle Chinese
- Middle Cornish
- Middle Danish
- Middle Dutch
- Middle Egyptian, Late—, Neo—
- Middle English
- Middle French
- Middle Frisian
- Middle Greek
- Middle High/ Low German
- Middle Indo-Aryan
- Middle Iranian
- Middle Irish
- Middle Japanese
- Middle Korean
- Middle Latin
- Middle Mongol
- Middle Mongolian
- Middle Norwegian
- Middle Ottoman
- Middle Persian
- Middle Polish
- Middle Saxon
- Middle Scots
- Middle Welsh
- Middle America, —n
- Middlebourne
- Middleburg
- Middlebury
- Middle Claydon
- Middle Earth, middle earth; Middle-earth, middle-earth
- Middle East, -ern, -ization
- Middle England, —er
- Middle Francia
- Middle Kingdom
- Middle Ocean
- Middle States
- Middle Stoke
- Middleton
- Middletown
- diddle for middle
- down the middle
- in the middle of
- law of (the) excluded middle
- man in the middle
- monkey in the middle
- piggy (pig) in the middle
- play (work) both sides (ends) against the middle
- take one's half out of the middle
- middle cerebral artery
- middle cervical ganglion
- middle ear
- middle finger
- middle lamella
- middle leg
- middle meningeal artery
- middle phalanx/ phalange
- middle pharyngeal constrictor
- middle rib
- middle scalene muscle
- middle temporal artery
- middle age, middle-aged
- Middle Ages
- middle atmosphere
- middle body
- middleborn
- middlebox
- middlebreaker
- middlebrow
- middlebuster
- middle C
- Middle Cambrian
- middle child
- middle class, middle-class, lower—, upper—
- middle-click
- middle college
- middle day
- middle distance, middle-distance
- middle eight
- middle-end
- middle for diddle
- middlegame (middle game)
- middle ground
- middle hundreds
- middle income trap
- middle infield, —er
- middle latitude
- middle manager, — management
- middleman (middle man), middlewoman, middleperson
- middle marker
- middle mile
- middle name
- middle note
- middle of nowhere
- middle of the road, —er
- middle order
- middle pair
- middle passage (Middle Passage)
- middle path
- middle position
- middle power
- middle reaches
- middle school, -er, — student
- middle-sized
- middle spotted woodpecker
- middlestream
- middle stump
- middle term
- middle tilde
- middle voice
- middle watch
- Middle Watut
- middle way
- middleweight
- middle youth
Related terms
- mid-
- middle- (in compounds; not a prefix)
- middling
Translations
|
|
|
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.]
- 1748, [Samuel Richardson], “Letter XXVII”, in Clarissa. Or, The History of a Young Lady: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to VII), London: […] S[amuel] Richardson; […], OCLC 13631815:
- 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.
-
- (obsolete, nautical, transitive) To double (a rope) into two equal portions; to fold in the middle. [19th c.]
Middle English
Adjective
middle
- inflection of middel:
- weak singular
- strong/weak plural