middle

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.

noun

1. A centre, midpoint.
   The middle of a circle is the point which has the same distance to every point of circle.
2. The part between the beginning and the end.
   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. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
3. (cricket) The middle stump.
4. The central part of a human body; the waist.
   If I have a diet plan and stick to it, it is easy for me to have control over my middle. 2012, Caroline Moore, Fasting In A Fast World
5. (grammar) The middle voice.

adj

1. Located in the middle; in between.
   the middle point
   middle name, Middle English, Middle Ages
2. Central.
3. (grammar) Pertaining to the middle voice.

verb

1. (obsolete) To take a middle view of.
2. (obsolete, nautical, transitive) To double (a rope) into two equal portions; to fold in the middle.