| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
| |
| middle |
| |
| SYLLABICATION: | mid·dle |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  m d l |
| ADJECTIVE: | 1. Equally distant from extremes or limits; central: the middle point on a line. 2. Being at neither one extreme nor the other; intermediate. 3a. Intervening between an earlier and a later period of time; being an intermediate part of a sequence or series: the middle years. b. Middle Geology Of or relating to a division of geologic time between an earlier and a later division: the Middle Paleozoic. 4. Middle Of or relating to a stage in the development of a language or literature between earlier and later stages: Middle Swedish. 5. Grammar Of, relating to, or being a verb form or voice in which the subject both performs and is affected by the action specified. | | NOUN: | 1. An area or a point equidistant between extremes; a center: the middle of a circle. 2. Something intermediate between extremes; a mean. 3. The interior portion: the middle of a chain. 4. The middle part of the human body; the waist. 5. Logic A middle term. 6. Grammar a. The middle voice. b. A verb form in the middle voice. | | TRANSITIVE VERB: | Inflected forms: mid·dled, mid·dling, mid·dles
1. To place in the middle. 2. Nautical To fold in the middle: middle the sail. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Middle English middel, from Old English. See medhyo- in Appendix I.
| | |
| |
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
