mild
/ˈmaɪld/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.11 in modern English
7
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Conciliatory, nonpolemical; gentle in tone.
adj
Moderately warm, especially less cold than expected.
Example Sentences
- "a mild man"
- "He received a mild sentence."
- "Between 1890 and 1910 his political writing became distinctly milder in tone as his mind moved in the direction of evolutionary socialism."
- "I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing."
- "I learn that mental retardation is classified in four levels: mild, moderate, severe, and profound."
- "NPDR can be further classified as mild, moderate, severe, or very severe, which can help predict how quickly the patient may progress to proliferative (neovascular) diabetic retinopathy (PDR)."
Etymology
From Middle English milde, from Old English milde (“mild”), from Proto-Germanic *mildijaz (“mild”), from Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to beat, pound, grind”). Cognate with Scots mild, myld (“mild”), Saterland Frisian milde (“mild”), West Frisian myld (“mild”), Dutch mild (“mild”), Low German milde (“mild”), German mild (“mild”), Danish, Swedish and Norwegian Bokmål mild (“mild”), Icelandic mildur (“mild”), Latin mollis (“soft, gentle”), Lithuanian malonus (“pleasing, pleasant, kind”), Old Norse mildr.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
- British usage