middle
/ˈmɪdl̩/ noun, adjective, verb, proper noun
Forms middles middlemost middlest middling middled myddle
- noun A centre, midpoint. “The middle of a circle is the point which has the same distance to every point of circle.”
- noun The part between the beginning and the end. “I woke up in the middle of the night.”
- noun (cricket) The middle stump.
- noun The central part of a human body; the waist.
- noun (grammar) The middle voice.
- noun (politics) the center of the political spectrum. “As part of his successful re-election strategy, Clinton began governing from the middle.”
- noun An essay on social or literary issues in a newspaper or magazine, originally placed between the leading articles and the reviews.
- adjective Located in the middle; in between. “the middle point”
- adjective Central.
- adjective (grammar) Pertaining to the middle voice.
- verb (obsolete, transitive) To take a middle view of.
- verb (obsolete, nautical, transitive) To double (a rope) into two equal portions; to fold in the middle.
- verb (cricket, transitive) To strike (the ball) with the middle portion of the face of the bat.
- proper noun A sheading of the Isle of Man.
Synonyms
centre center midst midpoint heart eye midriff midsection in-between mediate halfway midway
Antonyms
Etymology
From Middle English myddel, middel, from Old English middel (“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 Saterland Frisian Middel (“middle”), West Frisian mul (“middle”), Dutch middel (“means; medicine, cure”), German mittel (“middle”, adjective), Mittel (“means; medicament, remedy”, noun), Luxembourgish Mëttel (“means, method; medicament”), Vilamovian mytuł (“middle”), Yiddish מיטל (mitl, “middle”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk middel (“means”), Icelandic meðal (“average; means, medicine”), Swedish medel (“average, mean, middle”). See also mid.
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Equally distant from the extreme either of a number of things or of one thing; mean; medial; as, the middle house in a row; a middle rank or station in life; flowers of middle summer; men of middle age.
- adjective Intermediate; intervening.
- noun The point or part equally distant from the extremities or exterior limits, as of a line, a surface, or a solid; an intervening point or part in space, time, or order of series; the midst; central portion; specif., the waist. Chaucer. "The middle of the land." Judg.
Etymology [OE. middel, AS. middel; akin to D. middel, OHG. muttil, G. mittel. Mid, a.]
Etymology [AS. middel. See Middle, a.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “middle”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details