middle
/ˈmɪdl̩/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.18 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The middle stump.
noun
The central part of a human body; the waist.
noun
The middle voice.
noun
the center of the political spectrum.
noun
An essay on social or literary issues in a newspaper or magazine, originally placed between the leading articles and the reviews.
adj
Located in the middle; in between.
Example Sentences
- "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."
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Germanic *midjō Proto-Germanic *-ilą Proto-Germanic *midlą Old English middel Middle English myddel English middle 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”). Cognates 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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: myddel, middel, *midlą, *midjō, *médʰyos
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈmɪdl̩/
- British English: /ˈmɪdl̩/