midwinter
/ˌmɪdˈwɪntə(ɹ)/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.53 in modern English
15
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
8
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Of or occurring in the middle of winter.
Example Sentences
- "IN midwinter the shadow that hung over John gathered into storm-cloud."
- "Except for the mid-winter period, when the 11.30 a.m. from Paddington and its opposite number will be withdrawn - Torquay now has seven daily expresses to and from Paddington as compared with five down and six up previously."
- "There is aid at hand in the tourist’s personal war midwinter fatigue and ennui—airlines serving the Caribbean islands are at odds with each other’s tariffs, and their competitive juggling of schedules and prices benefits the tourist."
- "When my son was born, a midwinter child, he cried pitifully at the ward's lights, and settled to sleep only when he was laid in a big pram with a black hood under a black umbrella."
- "For more than a century, groundhogs have been midwinter luminaries, scampering into the spotlight on February 2 to divine whether the second half of the season will be cold or mild."
Etymology
From Middle English midwinter, mydwinter, mydwynter, from Old English midwinter, from Proto-West Germanic *midiwintru, from Proto-Germanic *midjawintruz (“midwinter”), equivalent to mid- + winter. Cognate with West Frisian midwinter (“midwinter”), Dutch midwinter (“midwinter”), German Mittwinter (“midwinter”), Danish midvinter (“midwinter”), Swedish midvinter (“midwinter”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Usage
Inflected Forms
midwinters (plural)
mid-winter (alternative)
Phrases
midwinter day
midwinter's day
midwinter eve
midwinter even
midwinter's eve
midwinter's even
mid-winterly
midwinter month