▪ I. middle, a. and n.
(ˈmɪd(ə)l)
Forms: 1 middel, midel, 3–6 middil, 3–5 midel, 3–6 middel, myddel, 3, 6–7 midle, 4 medel, -il, 4–5 medill(e, myddil(l, -ul, mydil, 4–6 middille, myddelle, myddyll(e, mydel(l, mydle, 5 medil(le, -ull(e, -ylle, middell, midil, -yl, 5–6 myddell, myddle, 6 medyl, myddle, 7 Sc. meidle, 6– middle. compar. 7 midler. superl. 1 midlest, 3–4 midlest(e, 4 middelest, midel(e)st, midliste, mydleste, 4–5 myddelest(e, 5 medellust, medlyste, myddlest, 6 mydlest.
[OE. middel, midl- adj., also n. masc. (by ellipsis of dǽl part) = OFris. middel adj., OS. middil- in compounds (LG., Du. middel adj. and n. neut. and fem.), OHG. mittil adj. (MHG. mittel adj. and n. neut. and fem., mod.G. mittel adj. and n. neut.):—WGer. *middil-, f. *middi:—OTeut. *miđjo- mid a. The Teut. langs. have also synonymous formations in which the suffix -lo, -ilo is attached directly to the root (OTeut. *međ-): OHG. metal adj., ON. meðal in advb. phrase á meðal between (Sw. medel n.); also ON. miðil, whence mill- for miðl- in á milli, á millom between (Sw. mellan, emellan, Da. mellem, imellem between, among).]
A. adj.
Not in predicative use. In OE. and ME. mainly found in the superlative; the present use of the positive partly descends from compounds, in which middel- may be equally well taken as adj. or as n. The superlative does not appear in our quots. later than the middle of the 16th c., but is given in the Leeds Glossary. The comparative, which is the prevailing form in mod.Ger., has never been current in English: for a solitary example, see quot. a 1682 in 2 b.
1. a. (Originally in superl.) Used to designate that member of a group or sequence, or that part of a whole, which has the same number of members or parts on each side of it: said with reference to position in space, time, order of succession or enumeration, or the like. Sometimes qualifying a plural n.
| a 900 tr. Bæda's Hist. iv. xxiv. [xxiii.] (1890) 334 Þa wæron þus hatne & nemde, Bosa, ætla, Oftfor, Iohannes & Wilfrið... Bi þæm midlestan is nu to secgenne [etc.]. c 900 Laws of K. ælfred c. 58 Se midlesta finger. a 1225 Ancr. R. 370 Þe meidenes eoden furðre to þe midleste. c 1290 S. Eng. Leg. I. 308/313 Þe nexte finguer hatte ‘leche’..‘Longueman’ hatte þe midleste for he lenguest is. c 1374 Chaucer Troylus iii. 615 [666] In þis myddel chaumbre þat ye se Shul youre wommen slepen wel and softe. a 1400 Hylton Scala Perf. (W. de W. 1494) i. lxxxii, I telle the of the myddelest of hym that boughte the oxen. c 1450 M.E. Med. Bk. (Heinrich) 77 Do awey þe ouerest rynde, and take þe meddellust, & stampe hit. 1577 B. Googe Heresbach's Husb. iii. (1586) 145 b, Shutte them vp the foure middle houres of the day. 1599 B. Jonson Ev. Man out of Hum. iii. i, The middle Isle in Paules. 1706 Phillips (ed. Kersey), Base... In Heraldry, the lowest part of an Escutcheon, consisting of the Dexter, Middle and Sinister Base-points. 1769 Goldsm. Hist. Rome (1786) II. 324 He was at that middle time of life which is happily tempered with the warmth of youth. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) I. 515 The three arterial coats are generally called external, middle and internal. 1860 Tyndall Glac. i. xi. 70 The middle portion of the glacier. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 284 Occupying the middle third, or rather middle two-fourths of the central convolutions. |
b. middle brother,
middle sister,
middle son, etc.: the second in age of three brothers, etc. In
ME. also in
superl.| c 1205 Lay. 2116 Cambert hehte þe oðer Þat wes þe midleste broðer. c 1275 Ibid. 12909 After him was an oþer Þat was þe middel broþer. c 1330 Arth. & Merl. 770 (Kölbing) Ȝete wald þe deuel ful of ond þe midel soster a gile fond. a 1400 Siege of Troy 430 in Archiv Stud. neu. Spr. LXXII. 21 Þenne com forþ Alisaunder Parys Þe kyngis medlyste sone of prys. c 1447 in F. M. Nichols Lawford Hall (1891) App. 22 John Baddele wedded Agnes the middell daughter of Thomas Cokefeld. 1531 Dial. on Laws Eng. i. vii. 12 If there be thre bretherne & the mydlest brother purchase landes [etc.]. 1757 Sir J. Dalrymple Hist. Feudal Property (1758) 176 A middle brother dying without children, and leaving an elder and younger brother alive. 1818 Cruise Digest (ed. 2) II. 522 She should have a writ of partition at common law, against the middle sister. |
c. Of a point or line (
† formerly sometimes of a concrete object): Equidistant from the extremities or boundaries; situated at the centre or middle.
| c 1400 Mandeville Prol. (1839) 2 He wil make it to ben cryed and pronounced in the myddel place of a Town. 1591 Shakes. 1 Hen. VI, ii. ii. 6 The middle centure of this cursed Towne. 1667 Milton P.L. iv. 195 Thence up he flew, and on the Tree of Life, The middle Tree and highest there that grew, Sat like a Cormorant. 1821 Craig Lect. Drawing 351 In the same way you will get the middle line of the mouth. |
† d. Average, mean.
Obs.| 1699 Bentley Phal. 84 We examine the Platonic, or Stoic, or Epicurean Successions; and compute by a middle rate. 1788 Priestley Lect. Hist. ii. x. 86 The seventeen intervals by the father's side, and the eighteen by the mother's at a middle reckoning amount to about 507 years. 1790 Burke Fr. Rev. 191 The middle term for the rest of France is about 900 inhabitants to the same admeasurement. |
e. Stock Exchange.
middle price: see
quot.| 1893 Cordingley Guide Stock Exch. 42 With most outside brokers the ‘cover’ runs off ‘at middle prices’; that is to say, the middle price between a jobber's buying and selling prices. Thus, if a quotation were 1423/4–143, the middle price would be 1427/8. |
2. Intermediate, intervening.
a. With reference to position in space, time, or order. Also of persons: Intermediary (now
rare:
cf. middle person in 6, and
middleman).
| c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 169 Warð blisfuller his [sc. Job's] ende, þene was his biginninge, and on þe midleste biwist þe he þolede þe ȝimere pine. a 1240 Sawles Warde in Cott. Hom. 257 Mi þridde suster meað spekeð of þe middel sti bituhhe riht ant luft. 1599 Davies Nosce Teipsum 59 Will, seeking good, finds manie middle ends. 1700 Dryden Pal. & Arc. iii. 586 They..speed the race, And spurring see decrease the middle space. 1718 Rowe tr. Lucan vi. 569 The middle Space, a Valley low depress'd. 1757 Foote Author i. Wks. 1799 I. 138, I wonder what makes your poets have such an aversion to middle floors—they are always to be found in the extremities; in garrets, or cellars. 1776 Adam Smith W.N. v. ii. (1869) II. 496 All the middle buyers, who intervened between either of them and the consumer. |
b. Of size, stature, rank, quality: Intermediate between the two extremes, medium. Of a course of action, an opinion: Mediating. Hence rarely of a person:
† That takes a middle course, trimming. Of a colour
= mid a. 2 a (
b).
| c 1374 Chaucer Anel. & Arc. 79 Yong was this quene, of xxti yere elde, Of myddell stature. c 1400 Destr. Troy 3751 A medull size, Betwene the large & the litill. 1442 Rolls of Parlt. V. 61/1 Beddes of the middel assise. 1525 in Visit. Southwell (Camden) 124 A gowne of myddle coloure. 1545 Brinklow Compl. 43 That the pore and myddel sort of the peple may be easyd therby. 1603 Florio Montaigne ii. xvi. (1632) 353, I have, in my daies, seene a thousand middle, mungrell and ambiguous men..loose themselves, where I have saved my selfe. a 1682 Sir T. Browne Tracts 119 The first produceth a Female and large Hawk, the second of a midler sort, and the third a smaller Bird Tercellene. a 1716 South Serm. (1823) IV. 130 And therefore men of a middle condition are indeed doubly happy. 1719 De Foe Crusoe i. (Globe) 3 That the middle Station of Life was calculated for all kind of Virtues and all kind of Enjoyments. 1774 Burke Sp. Amer. Tax. Sel. Wks. I. 136 An Administration, that having no scheme of their own, took a middle line. 1782 Priestley Corrupt. Chr. I. i. 145 A middle opinion has been adopted by some Arians. 1826 Scott Woodst. i, He was a stout man of middle stature. 1858 T. D. Acland Oxford A.A. Exam. 3 The want of better education, accessible to the middle ranks on easy terms. 1869 Bradshaw's Railway Manual XXI. 460 (Advt.), Brunswick Green dark middle, and pale. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) V. 74 The best condition is a middle one. 1884 Times (weekly ed.) 5 Sept. 5/5 These societies take a middle ground between agnosticism and theism. 1902 A. E. W. Mason Four Feathers xiv. 135 He was a man of the middle size. 1926–7 Army & Navy Stores Catal. 299/1 Washable water paint... Colours..Light Stone—Middle Stone—Dark Stone. 1950 J. Cannan Murder Included vii. 158 A wool frock of a dull middle-blue. |
c. Middle-sized.
Obs. in general sense. Of wool: Having the staple of medium length.
† Of the voice: Moderately loud.
| c 1410 Master of Game (MS. Digby 182) xiv, It is goode þat he haue both of þe gret and of þe smale and of the mydel. c 1440 Alphabet of Tales 87 Þe psalm was begon in a medull voyce. 1642 Bk. Rates 2 Balkes, great, the hundred containing 120, 12 . 00 . 00, middle..05 . 00 . 00, small..02 . 00 . 00. 1663 in Kirkcudbr. War-Comm. Min. Bk. (1855) 187 note, Ane great pot, meidle pot, and ane lytle pot. 1837 Youatt Sheep 304 A kind of middle wool. 1859 Stationers' Handbk. 17 Thin post, ranging from 11 to 15 lbs.; Middle post, ranging from 16 to 18 lbs.; Thick post, comprising 19 to 23 lbs. |
† d. Of a battle: Indecisive.
Obs.| 1625 Yonge Diary (Camden) 84 A middle fight. |
3. In partitive concord:
= ‘(The) middle or middle part of; mid’. Now
rare.
| 785 in Birch Cartul. Sax. I. 339 Be midelen streame. 1382 Wyclif Mark vi. 47 Whanne euenyng was, the boot was in the myddil see [1388 myddil of the see]. 1568 Grafton Chron. II. 8 Marcarus..Erle of Northumberland, and Edwyn Erle of middle England, with Edgar Athelyng [etc.]. 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. ii. i. 82 Neuer since the middle Summers spring Met we on hil, in dale, forrest, or mead. 1625 Milton Death of Fair Infant 16 Through middle empire of the freezing aire He wanderd long. 1629 ― Hymn Nativ. 164 When at the worlds last session, The dreadfull judge in middle Air shall spread his throne. a 1631 Donne Sat. i. 15 Thou wilt not leave mee in the middle street. 1632 Lithgow Trav. ix. 402, I stepped downe to my middle thigh in the water. 1663 Butler Hud. i. ii. 1142 So foul [the Stocks], that whoso is in, Is to the Middle-leg in Prison. 1812 Byron Ch. Har. ii. xxix, Calypso's isles, The sister tenants of the middle deep. 1827 Macculloch Malaria viii. 352 The two months of middle summer and the four of middle winter are..the freest from original attacks of..Malaria. 1860 Hawthorne Marb. Faun xxxix. 302 The holy cloud of incense,..which had risen into the middle dome. |
4. Philology.
a. Gram. Intermediate between active and passive: primarily (after
Gr. µέση διάθεσις, µέσον ῥῆµα), the designation of a ‘voice’ of
Gr. verbs which normally expresses reflexive or reciprocal action, action viewed as affecting the subject, or intransitive conditions. Hence applied (
a) to the system of conjugation in other Indogermanic langs. morphologically corresponding to the
Gr. middle voice; (
b) to verbal forms in various langs. serving to express a reflexive or reciprocal sense.
| 1751 Harris Hermes (1765) 176 That Species of Verbs, called Verbs Middle. 1844 Proc. Philol. Soc. I. 232 The middle verbs in the Icelandic language have been called..reciprocal instead of reflective. 1871 Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue §299 It gives to the English language a Middle Voice, or a power of verbal expression which is neither active nor passive. 1906 J. H. Moulton Gram. N.T. Grk. I. 161 note, Formal passives with middle meaning. |
b. Prefixed (after G.
mittel- as used by J. Grimm) to the name of a language, to denote a period in the history of the language intermediate between those called
Old and
New or
Modern, as in
Middle-English (see
English n. 1 b),
Middle High-German,
Middle-Irish. Similarly
Middle-Latin, by some used for Mediæval Latin.
On the other hand
Middle German (without the limiting
High or
Low) is used only in a local sense, for the dialects of middle Germany (geographically and phonologically intermediate between Low and High German).
† c. Phonetics. Of consonant sounds:
= medial a. 5.
Obs. rare—0. (In recent Dicts.)
5. Geol. Prefixed to the name or adjectival designation of a formation or period, to denote a subdivision intermediate between two others called ‘Upper’ and ‘Lower’.
| 1838 Penny Cycl. XI. 138 Middle lias shale. 1855 Ogilvie Suppl., Middle epoch, in geol., an epoch characterized by the presence of the new red sandstone. 1859 J. R. Greene Man. Protozoa 25 They are chiefly characteristic of the Middle Eocene. |
6. Special collocations:
Middle Academy, name given to the mainly sceptic school of philosophy developed in the third century b.c. by Arcesilaus (316/15–242/1 b.c.) when he was head of the Academy founded by Plato;
Middle America, (
a) a geographical region comprising central America, Mexico, and the Antilles; (
b) the ‘silent’ majority of Americans, regarded as a homogeneous group; hence
Middle American a. and n.;
middle article = middle B. 12;
middle bachelor, a B.A. of standing between ‘senior’ and ‘junior’,
i.e. in his second year (now only
U.S.);
middle band Naut., ‘one of the bands of a sail, to give additional strength’ (
Adm. Smyth);
† middle bend, some card-sharping device (see
quot.);
middle-brow,
middlebrow, (
a)
n., a person of average or moderate cultural interests; (
b)
adj., claiming to be or regarded as only moderately intellectual;
middle C,
Mus. (see
quot. 1876);
middle chest Mil., the front chest on the body of an artillery caisson, so-called from its position between the rear chest on the body and the chest on the limber (
Cent. Dict. 1890);
middle comedy (see
comedy1 2);
middle common room, a common room for graduate students; also graduate students collectively;
middle cut file, a file whose teeth have a grade of coarseness between the
rough and
bastard (Knight
Dict. Mech. 1875);
middle deck, the deck between the upper deck and the lower deck;
† middle dish Cookery, an entrée;
middle distance, (
a) (see
distance n. 10 c); (
b)
Athletics, a distance for a race longer than a sprint but shorter than a long-distance race,
esp. one of 440 yards, 880 yards, or a mile (or corresponding metric distances); also (with hyphen)
attrib.;
middle distillate, a petroleum fraction that comes off at intermediate temperatures (about 180° to 340°C) in fractional distillation, from which is obtained paraffin, diesel oil, and heating oil;
middle ear, the tympanum, sometimes also used for the tympanum together with the mastoid cells and the Eustachian tube (
Syd. Soc. Lex. 1890); used
attrib. in
middle ear disease, etc.;
middle eight colloq., the eight bars in the middle of a conventionally structured popular tune, often of a different character from the other parts of the tune; the B section in a tune of the form A, A, B, A; the ‘release’;
† middle eld,
= middle age 1;
Middle Empire = Middle Kingdom;
Middle-European a., of, pertaining to, or characteristic of central Europe or its people;
cf. Mittel-European a.
and n.;
middle frame, in
Organ building (see
quot.);
middle game, the part of a game of chess between the opening and the end-game;
middle genus, a genus which is at the same time a species of a higher genus (
Cent. Dict.);
middle ground, (
a)
Naut. a shallow place, as a bank or bar; (
b)
Painting = middle distance; (
c) a place half-way between extremes; an area of moderation or compromise; also
attrib.;
middle guard [
guard n. 3 b]
Cricket, the position occupied by a batsman so that his bat defends the middle stump;
middle height, (
a) the middle of the height, the distance half-way up a mountain, etc.; (
b) medium stature;
middle horn, one of a breed of cattle having horns that are neither long nor short (
cf. longhorn,
shorthorn);
middle income, an average income; also (with hyphen)
attrib.;
† Middle Inn, ?
= Middle temple;
Middle Kingdom, (
a) a name for China; (
b) in ancient Egypt, the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties, which ruled from the 22nd to the 18th century b.c.;
middle lamella Bot. (see
quots.);
middle landlord, in Ireland, a landlord who leases a tract of land, and sub-lets it to tenants;
middle latitude (see
quots.);
middle leg slang, the penis;
middle-length attrib., (of a story, etc.) of medium length;
middle life, (
a) the middle of a person's life, middle age; (
b) the life of the middle classes;
middle line, (
a)
Naut. (see
quot.); (
b)
Croquet, the line of hoops placed in the middle of the lawn; in
quot. attrib.;
middle management orig. U.S. (see
quot. 1957); also (with hyphen)
attrib.; hence
middle manager;
† middle mast = mainmast;
† middle mean, moderation;
middle-middle, (
a) the middle or centre; (
b) a member of the middle-middle-class;
middle-middle-class, the class of society midway between the ‘upper’ and the ‘lower’ class; also
pl. in the same sense;
middle motion = mean motion (see
mean a.
2 7 a);
middle name orig. U.S., (
a) a name between one's first Christian name and one's surname; (
b)
fig., the outstanding characteristic of a person;
† middle-off, -on Cricket = mid-off,
-on (
obs.);
middle oil, that part of the distillate obtained from coal tar which passes over between 170° and 230° Centigrade; distinguished from the
light, and the
heavy or
dead oil (Webster 1897);
middle passage, the middle portion (
i.e. the part consisting of sea travel) of the journey of a slave carried from Africa to America; (see also
quot. 1949);
middle period, the middle phase (of a culture, artist's work, etc.); also
attrib.;
middle piece, (
a) in
Farriery, the part of a horse's body between the fore and the hind legs; (
b)
transf. in
Pugilistic slang, the chest; (
c)
U.S. = middling 4;
middle pointed a.,
Arch., a name for the style commonly called Decorated Gothic;
middle post, in
Carpentry = king-post 1;
middle rail, (
a) the rail of a door level with the hand, on which the lock is usually fixed; (
b) the ‘live’ central rail of an electric railway;
middle-range attrib., designating a thing or things that occur in the middle of a range of items;
middle-rank, a body of things or persons of intermediate status or value; also
attrib. or as adj., of neither high nor low rank or value; hence
middle-ranking adj. (
cf. high-ranking a.);
middle rib, in beef: one of the ribs between the fore ribs and the chuck ribs;
middle-road attrib.,
= middle-of-the-road;
middle school, (
a)
= middle class school; (
b) the middle forms in a grammar or independent school (see
quot. 1960); (
c) a separate post-primary school within the educational system of a state for children aged between about nine and thirteen years; also
attrib.;
middle shot wheel, a breast-wheel which receives the water at about its middle height (Knight);
middle space Printing, a space intermediate in size between ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ (see
quot.);
middle spear local (see
quot.);
Middle States, the States which originally formed the middle part of the United States, intermediate between New England and the Southern States, namely New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware (
Cent. Dict.);
middle stead dial. (see
quot.);
Middle Temple (see
temple);
middle term,
† (
a) a partial degree; (
b)
Logic, the term which is common to the premises of a syllogism, and disappears in the conclusion;
middle timber, that timber in the stern which is placed amidships (
Adm. Smyth);
middle tint Painting, ‘a mixed tint in which bright colours never predominate’ (Fairholt
Dict. Art 1854);
middle-tone = half-tone n. 2;
middle topsail, a deep roached sail, set in some schooners and sloops on the heel of their topmasts between the top and the cap (
Adm. Smyth);
middle tree,
† (
a) ? a middle post in a gateway; (
b) a pole for a cart drawn by oxen;
† middle vein, the median vein;
middle Victorian a., belonging to the middle of the Victorian era;
middle wall, a partition wall;
middle watch Naut., the watch from midnight to 4 a.m.; also the portion of the crew on deck duty during the middle watch;
middle watcher, the slight meal snatched by officers of the middle watch about 2.30 a.m. (
Adm. Smyth);
middle-water attrib., applied to fishing, or to ships engaged in fishing, at a medium distance from land;
middle weight, a man of average weight;
spec. (in various sports) used to designate an intermediate weight class;
esp. in professional boxing, a boxer whose weight is not more than 11 stone 6 lbs.; also
attrib.;
Middle West, the north central states of the
U.S.A., as distinct from the West or Far West (see
quot. 1949); so
Middle Western a.;
Middle White, a Yorkshire breed of pig;
† middle wicket = mid-wicket (see
mid a. 1 d) (
obs.);
† middle woof, applied
attrib. to a kind of yarn;
middle years, the years in the middle of one's life, middle age.
| 1659 T. Stanley tr. Sextus Empiricus's Pyrr. Hyp. in Hist. Philos. iv. 33 Arcesilaus, Institutor and President of the *middle Academy, seems to me to participate so much of the Pyrrhonian reasons, as that his Institution and ours is almost the same. 1744 W. Guthrie Morals of Cicero p. xiii, We are now arrived at the middle Academy, the Founder of which was Arcesilas. 1845 G. H. Lewes Biogr. Hist. Philos. II. viii. iv. 165 The Middle Academy and the New Academy we thus unite in one; although the ancients drew a distinction between them, it is difficult for moderns to do. 1899 M. M. Patrick Sextus Empiricus & Gk. Scepticism iv. 77 Sextus himself claims a close relation between the Middle Academy and Pyrrhonism. 1970 Oxf. Class. Dict. (ed. 2) 95/1 The term ‘Middle Academy’ may also derive from Antiochus [of Ascalon]. |
| 1898 Pop. Sci. Monthly Nov. 1 (title) Was *Middle America peopled from Asia? 1952 S. Tax (title) Heritage of conquest: the ethnology of Middle America. 1957 Social & Econ. Stud. (Kingston, Jamaica) VI. iii. 380 (title) Haciendas and plantations in Middle America and the Antilles. 1966 West & Augelli Middle Amer. i. 1 Middle America is an arbitrary geographic expression which refers to a mosaic of people, places, and cultures. Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies, the area which the term usually defines, share a general focus on the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea and an intermediate location between North and South America. 1968 Sunday Times 29 Sept. 8 What is seriously wrong with Mr Nixon's new Middle America is that it is virtually all white. 1971 Guardian 5 Apr. 4/1 Mr Agnew has continued to reflect the prejudices and confusions of Middle America. 1972 P. Dickinson Lizard in Cup x. 159 We've got to show that we can build, but..Middle America will like that even less than the bombs. 1973 Tucson (Arizona) Daily Citizen 22 Aug. 28/1 The Braunlichs will also tell you that, sad as it is, middle America is leery of things it gets for free. |
| 1926 F. F. Blom Tribes & Temples I. i. 4 There are maps of most of the *Middle American countries, and the greater number of them..are remarkably inaccurate. 1969 Collier's Encycl. Year Bk. 3 Her [sc. Mrs. Richard Nixon's] looks and taste are classic Middle American, even as her husband's are. 1970 Time 5 Jan. 9 Who precisely are the Middle Americans?.. They make up the core of the group that Richard Nixon now invokes as the ‘forgotten Americans’ or ‘the Great Silent Majority’. 1971 Guardian 5 Jan. 10/6 If the chips were to come down now, the final word would undoubtedly rest with the middle Americans. 1975 Atlantic Monthly Jan. 28/1 The phrase ‘Middle American’ was first used..by Joseph Kraft in the spring of 1968, when he was writing about the municipal workers in New York City... He specifically referred to their ethnic character: Irish policemen, Italian sanitation workers, Jewish school-teachers, and so on. |
| a 1894 C. H. Pearson in W. Stebbing Charles Henry Pearson (1900) viii. 90 T. C. Sandars..created the so-called *middle article—the essay on social topics. 1966 Listener 27 Oct. 621/3 Those ‘light’ middle articles which used to be a feature of the highbrow weeklies. |
| 1758 Ann. Reg. 91 Two *middle batchelors of the University of Cambridge. 1840 J. Quincy Hist. Harvard Univ. II. 540 A Senior Sophister has authority to take a Freshman from a Sophomore, a Middle Bachelor from a Junior Sophister [etc.]. |
| 1626 Capt. Smith Accid. Yng. Seamen 9 For clamps, *middle bands and sleepers, they be all of 6. inch planke for binding within. |
| 1734 R. Seymour Compl. Gamester (ed. 5) ii. 6 [Whist.] The other is vulgarly called Kingston-Bridge, or the *Middle-bend. It is done by bending your own or Adversary's Tricks two different Ways [etc.]. |
| 1925 Punch 23 Dec. 673/3 The B.B.C. claim to have discovered a new type, the ‘*middlebrow’. It consists of people who are hoping that some day they will get used to the stuff they ought to like. 1928 Observer 17 June 26 The standard of ‘middle-brow’ music and plays is always rather low. 1934 C. Lambert Music Ho! iv. 247 Hindemith is the journalist of modern music, the supreme middlebrow of our times. 1958 Middle-brow [see glossy a. a]. 1972 L. Alcock By South Cadbury i. 22 The onerous and unrewarding task of Secretary was filled by Geoffrey Ashe, writer of distinguished middle-brow books on the problems of the historical Arthur. |
| 1840 Penny Cycl. XVI. 493/1 A *middle C stop-diapason pipe. 1876 Stainer & Barrett Dict. Mus. Terms, Middle C. The note standing on the first leger line above the bass stave, and the first leger line below the treble stave. |
| 1958 Times 28 Oct. 12/5 Lincoln College is to be the first Oxford college to establish a special common room for postgraduate students of the college. It will be known as the *Middle Common Room. 1969 Rep. Comm. on Relations with Junior Members Univ. Oxf. 48 One shall be a president of a Middle Common Room elected by the conference of M.C.R. Presidents. 1971 Guardian 21 Dec. 1/6 The ability of the junior and middle common rooms to play their essential rôle in a collegiate university. |
| 1758 J. Blake Plan Mar. Syst. 2 The *middle deck tier on board in their proper places, lashed fore and aft. |
| 1747 H. Glasse Cookery ix. 84 Salamangundy for a *Middle Dish at Supper. 1813 *Middle-distance [see distance n. 10 c]. 1858 Hawthorne Fr. & It. Note-Bks. (1872) II. 47 Its great Duomo was seen in the middle distance. |
| 1891 Harper's Young People 7 Apr. 384/2 Among *middle-distance men, as among sprinters, there are various types of runners. 1901 Encycl. Sport I. 56/1 It is fairer to describe a Quarter Mile as one of the middle distances. Ibid., The sprinter must use different tactics to the middle-distance runner. 1929 G. M. Butler Mod. Athletics v. 74 Speed..should be the middle-distance runner's main objective. 1960 Middle distance [see front-runner s.v. front n. 14]. |
| 1956 Nature 10 Mar. 460/1 Prof. Morton's research work has been concerned with the constitution of petroleum, [and] with methods of separation of hydrocarbons, particularly in the *middle-distillate boiling range. 1973 People's Jrnl. (Inverness & Northern Counties ed.) 15 Dec. 1/1 The nature of North-Sea crude oil is more suited to what we call ‘middle distillates’—diesel oil, oil fuel for heating and sulphur by-products. |
| 1887 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 19 Feb. 407/1 Mr. Baker confined his remarks to abscess from *middle-ear disease. |
| 1966 Melody Maker 16 Apr. 8 Doesn't sound as though there's a *middle eight. It's good, though not as good as some of their previous records. 1968 Listener 1 Feb. 157/3 Popular song has long been confined to an appalling eight-bar monotony. An eight-bar section, repeated; a ‘middle eight’ and the first eight again. |
| a 1400 Parlt. 3 Ages 280 In his *medill elde. |
| 1698 A. Brand Emb. Muscovy to China 100 China is known under several names..the Chineses have retained two,.. Chungehoa, that is, the *Middle Empire, and Chunque, which is Middle Garden. |
| 1939 M. Allingham Mr. Campion & Others 86 She's frightfully susceptible. It's her *Middle-European blood. 1949 E. Coxhead Wind in West iv. 115 That's enough gloom, turn on the Middle-European gaiety. 1972 C. Drummond Death at Bar vi. 159 Dee had liked middle-European victuals. |
| 1881 C. A. Edwards Organs 42 Sixteen ribs are used in the reservoir of bellows..divided..by a wooden frame called the *middle-frame. |
| 1894 J. Mason Princ. Chess 184 No true knowledge of it [sc. the opening] is possible independently of a fair knowledge of..the *middle game and end. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 14 Nov. 664/4 The main portion of the work..is concerned with middle-game tactics. 1959 Listener 5 Mar. 434/1 Coming to middle game, it is instructive to see how a great player defends himself when he is in trouble. |
| 1801 Nelson in Duncan Life (1806) 146 The Channel of the Outer Deep, and the position of the *Middle Ground. 1850 Weale's Dict. Arch. etc. s.v., Pictures are divided into three parts: fore-ground, middle-ground, and back-ground. 1875 Bedford Sailor's Pocket Bk. v. (ed. 2) 136 Where a middle ground exists in a channel, each end of it will be marked by a buoy of the colour in use in that channel. 1961 A. Smith East-Enders vi. 102 The middleground is missing... There's no common place inside the East End for everyone as there used to be. 1972 Language XLVIII. 278 In the case of terms like possible and impossible, there is no middle ground; but that is simply the nature of terms which permit no qualification. 1972 Guardian 11 Oct. 12/2 The Laureate has to be a middle-ground man, and there are very few of them around. 1973 Ibid. 24 Mar. 22/6 Ultimately as the Alliance leaders know, the organisation of middleground politics is of secondary importance. |
| 1871 ‘Thomsonby’ Cricketers in Council 25 Hold your bat up straight, on the popping crease, and ask for ‘*middle’ guard. 1941 Economist 12 Apr. 475/1 Direct taxation on what have come to be known as the ‘middle incomes’. 1958 B. A. Smith in N. Mackenzie Conviction 59 The major beneficiaries of these changes were the middle-income groups. 1971 M. McCarthy Birds of America 54 The subspecies they belonged to—white, middle-income intelligentsia. |
| 1812 Sir H. Davy Chem. Philos. 91 The Andes, placed almost under the line, rises in the midst of burning sands; about the *middle height is a pleasant and mild climate. 1843 Borrow Bible in Spain xxxiv, He was a thin man of about the middle height. |
| 1834 Youatt Cattle ii. 10 For these reasons we consider the *middle horns to be the native breed of Great Britain. |
| 1450 Paston Lett. I. 159 Prentise is now in the *Mydle Inne. |
| 1662 J. Davies tr. Mandelslo's Trav. 215 The Chineses themselves give it the name of Chunghoa, or Chungque, whereof the former signifies the *Middle Kingdom. 1848 S. W. Williams (title) The Middle Kingdom: a survey..of the Chinese Empire and its inhabitants. 1890 F. L. Griffith Antiquities Tell el Yahûdîyeh 39/1 The earliest dateable antiquities from Tell el Yahûdîyeh are of the middle kingdom. 1906 J. H. Breasted Hist. Egypt iii. viii. 156 The stable organization, which enabled her [sc. Egypt] about 2000 b.c. to enter upon her second great period of productive development, the Middle Kingdom. 1928 C. Dawson Age of Gods viii. 173 The Middle Minoan period corresponds to the Middle Kingdom. 1969 V. G. Kiernan Lords of Human Kind v. 150 That China was the Middle Kingdom, the one truly civilized realm, was..an axiom to its inhabitants. 1971 J. R. Harris Legacy of Egypt (ed. 2) 3 Pieces of Middle Kingdom jewellery were reproduced at Byblos in the second millennium b.c. |
| 1925 Eames & MacDaniels Introd. Plant Anat. ii. 25 When a pronounced secondary wall is present the primary wall is commonly called the *middle lamella. 1947 Ibid. (ed. 2) ii. 28 The intercellular layer is the middle layer of this group of three or five layers and the term middle lamella should be restricted to this. 1965 K. Esau Plant Anat. (ed. 2) iii. 34 On the basis of development and structure three parts are commonly recognized in plant cell walls: the intercellular substance or middle lamella, the primary wall, and the secondary wall. |
| 1817 M. Edgeworth Ormond xxiii, The tenants..during the time of the late *middle landlord, had been in the habit of making their rents by nefarious practices. |
| 1710 J. Harris Lex. Techn. II, *Middle Latitude, in Navigation, is half the Summ of any two given Latitudes. 1727–41 Chambers Cycl., Middle latitude sailing, is used for a method of working the several cases in sailing, nearly agreeing with Mercator's way, but without the help of meridional parts. |
| 1922 Joyce Ulysses 443 Are you going far, queer fellow? How's your *middle leg? 1935 Dylan Thomas Let. Feb. (1966) 151 Men should be two tooled and a poet's middle leg is his pencil. |
| 1928 Scholartis Press Catal. July, A volume of five *middle-length (not short) stories by Norah Hoult. 1946 ‘G. Orwell’ Shooting Elephant (1950) 168 The usual middle-length review. |
| c 1330 Arth. & Merl. 5391 (Kölbing) Þis were noble kniȝtes fiue & alle of *midel liue. 1719 De Foe Crusoe ii. init., It might be allowed me to have had Experience of every State of middle Life. 1779–81 Johnson L.P., Otway Wks. II. 219 It is a domestick tragedy drawn from middle life. 1855 H. Martineau Autobiog. (1877) II. 115 The scene [of Deerbrook] being laid in middle life. 1895 R. L. Douglas in Bookman Oct. 23/1 The king..does his best in a toilsome old age to mitigate the disastrous effects of the blunders of his middle life. |
| 1805 Shipwright's Vade-M. 117 *Middle line, a line dividing the ship exactly in the middle. In the horizontal..plan, it is a right line bisecting the ship from the stem to the stern-post; and, in the..body-plan, it is a perpendicular line bisceting the ship from the keel to the height of the top of the side. 1891 Laws Croquet 1 The middle-line hoops. |
| 1957 Clark & Gottfried Dict. Business & Finance 228/2 *Middle management, in general, the group or class of junior executives and senior supervisory personnel in the direct line of authority and communications between the top levels of management and the first line supervisory personnel. 1966 S. Phipps God on Monday vi. 76 The opposite swing of the same pendulum may be seen in the groups of middle-management-type bungalows that are appearing round the fringes of English villages. 1966 Punch 28 Sept. 485/1 The productivity agreement says a good deal for the efficiency of the group, at least at middle-management level. 1975 Harper's & Queen May 101 The Saudis need to swell their middle management by 200,000. |
| 1966 N.Y. Times 4 Apr. 33/1 The *middle managers have, understandably, resisted any change. 1985 Economist 29 June 65/1 In America,..business-school ideas are pervasive among middle managers and are beginning to infiltrate boardrooms. |
| 1632 Lithgow Trav. ii. 62 We shot away their *middle mast. |
| 1577 tr. Bullinger's Decades ii. v. (1592) 161 In both, there must be had a *middlemeane and measure. |
| 1914 E. M. Forster Maurice (1971) xlii. 202 The clientele of Messrs Hill and Hall was drawn from the *middle-middle classes. 1926 D. H. Lawrence David iii. 21 And only from the middle-middle of all the worlds, where God stirs amid His waters, can strength come to us. 1934 H. Read Art & Industry iv. 126/1 He..is a middle-middle-class man with a nice little house in the suburbs. 1936 ‘G. Orwell’ Keep Aspidistra Flying iii. 54 The derelict spinsters of the middle-middle classes. 1955 T. H. Pear Eng. Social Differences iii. 90 When ‘middle-middles’ become ‘upper-middles’ they..drop middle-class euphemisms. 1973 Listener 22 Feb. 249/3 Their milieux range from lower-middle to middle-middle class. |
| 1669 Sturmy Mariner's Mag. vi. iii. 106 The Table of the *Middle-Motion of the Sun. 1835 Harvardiana II. 23 [He] then asks their *middle names. 1919 Wodehouse Damsel in Distress ii. 31 My dad ran a Bide a Wee Home for flowers, and I used to know them all by their middle names. Ibid. xvi. 203 Everyone told me your middle name was Nero. 1920 Ade Hand-Made Fables 92, I take it that Mixer is your middle name. 1926 A. Christie Murder R. Ackroyd xi. 144 ‘Modesty is certainly not his middle name.’ ‘I wish you wouldn't be so horribly American, James.’ 1932 N. & Q. 3 Sept. 177/2 There is also a proverbial saying, ‘Money is his middle name’, ‘Art is her middle name’, meaning one's forte. 1972 P. Cleife Slick & Dead xvii. 134 If I had a dollar for every time I've said that, my middle name would be Rothschild. 1972 J. Porter Meddler & her Murder i. 11 Tact was far from being the Hon. Con's middle name. |
| 1851 W. Clark in W. Bolland Cricket Notes 137 The *middle off, cover point, long slip, and long stop should all save one run. |
| 1843 ‘Wykhamist’ Pract. Hints Cricket (caption) Short leg or *middle on. 1887 F. Gale Game of Cricket 139 Middle-on and middle-off were..about equal distance from either wicket, standing back some fifteen yards from the centre between the wickets, opposite each other. |
| 1788 T. Clarkson Essay on Slavery (ed. 2) iii. iii. 98 The captain of a ship, then on the *middle passage, had lost a considerable number of his slaves by death. 1812 Examiner 28 Sept. 621/1 Captains of the slave ships, on board whose ships..the..cruelties of a middle passage had been practised. 1829 Macaulay Pitt Misc. Writ. 1860 II. 346 A humane bill which mitigated the horrors of the middle passage. 1949 C. Lloyd Navy & Slave Trade i. i. 5 The Round Trip..was commonly divided into three ‘passages’. On the outward passage the cargo consisted of textiles, hardware, alcohol and antiquated firearms. These were traded on the coast for slaves, who were shipped to America and the West Indies on the notorious Middle Passage. The principal cargoes taken on there for the homeward passage were sugar, tobacco and rum. 1969 Listener 22 May 713/3 Even the unsqueamish stomachs of the 18th century were turned by accounts of the Middle Passage. |
| 1873 C. M. Yonge Pillars of House IV. xxxvi. 50 Here's the dining room... This is the *middle period, the Stewart style part. 1894 G. B. Shaw Music in London 1890–94 (1932) III. 157 Those features of the middle period Beethovenism of which we all have to speak so very seriously. 1930 W. S. Maugham Cakes & Ale i. 17 The novels of his middle period reflected..the strain. 1951 T. S. Eliot Poetry & Drama ii. 20 His [sc. Yeats's] middle-period Plays for Dancers. |
| 1817 Sporting Mag. L. 54 Randall closed this round by a terrible blow in the *middle-piece. 1843 Ld. G. Bentinck in Racing Life ix. (1892) 201 Colonel Anson says he is a very clever horse, and one that must run, but thinks him rather small in the middle-piece. 1891 H. S. Constable Horses, Sport & War 63 A horse with big ends and a small middle-piece is more likely to become a roarer than a horse with a good middle piece and thence a good constitution. 1902 E. Banks Newspaper Girl 161 Your Boston beans done in an earthen pot with the middle-piece pork just rightly browned. |
| 1879 Sir G. G. Scott Lect. Archit. I. 347 It was to be the earliest phase of the later form of *Middle Pointed. |
| 1823 P. Nicholson Pract. Build. 588 *Middle-post; in a roof the same as King Post. |
| 1812 ― Mech. Exerc. 200 *Middle Rail [of a door]. 1842 Gwilt Archit. §2130 In doors, the upper rails are called top rails; the next in descending, frize rails; the next, which are usually wider than the two first, are called the lock or middle rails. 1905 Goodchild & Tweney Technol. & Sci. Dict. 401/2 Middle rail, a heavy conductor in the form of a rail carried on insulating supports, which is laid between the running rails of an electric railway to supply current to the motors. 1964 G. F. Arnold in D. Abercrombie et al. Daniel Jones 17 The middle-range percentages..are provided by comparisons of phonemes. 1967 M. Argyle Psychol. Interpersonal Behaviour ix. 161 In the matter of price, for example, some Ss [sc. salesmen] show the middle-range item first, others show the most expensive. |
| 1961 Times 28 Dec. 11/4 That solid *middle-rank of literature. 1969 Daily Tel. 10 Oct. 3 Sterling, too, is a middle-rank currency these days—apparently safe from heavy selling pressure but not exactly in demand by speculators. 1972 Guardian 13 Nov. 2/3 Middle-rank American and Vietnamese officials in Saigon. |
| 1959 Encounter Aug. 18/1 Instructions transmitted..from on high through a number of *middle-ranking personages down to floor polishers. |
| 1747, 1844 *Middle rib [see chuck n.4 2]. 1963 A. L. Simon Guide Good Food & Wines 406/1 The Middle Ribs and Chuck Ribs, sometimes called Wing Ribs, are both uneconomical and ungainly as joints owing to the larger proportion of bone to meat. |
| 1958 A. Wilson Middle Age of Mrs Eliot iii. 343 A nice *middle-road historian's position, he thought to himself with comforting irony. 1971 Guardian 14 May 1/3 With no obviously dominating candidate to step into Nasser's shoes, they chose the safe middleroad candidate—Sadat. |
| 1838 Bp. Wilberforce in Ashwell Life I. iv. 117 It is very desirable that ultimately we should get the *middle schools to as much uniformity as possible in the books they use. 1860 A. Jessopp Middle-Class Exams. 15 Middle Schools—schools which occupy that large ‘terra incognita’ between the National School and the Grammar School. 1914 ‘I. Hay’ Lighter Side School Life viii. 224 The occasion of his first attendance at a meeting of the Middle School Debating Society. 1933 Middle school [see Aryan n. 2]. 1960 Where? iii. 15 Middle school, usually the third and fourth forms of a school (a grammar school expression). 1962 E. J. King World Perspectives in Educ. iii. vii. 142 The new Danish two-year programme established for all twelve-year-olds in 1959..was..a nationwide formalization of what used to happen in many urban middle schools. 1971 Guardian 20 Oct. 1/8 Surrey..County Council..passed a scheme providing for middle schools followed by 12–18 comprehensives. 1973 New Society 10 May 294/1 In 1970, the Department of Education and Science introduced a new category called ‘middle schools’ into its yearly Statistics... What is a middle school? The official version is..a school which straddles the traditional primary-to-secondary transfer age of eleven. |
| 1871 Amer. Encycl. Printing (ed. Ringwalt) s.v. Spaces. Five to an em or five thin spaces; four to an em, or four *middle spaces; three to an em, or three thick spaces. |
| 1863 W. Barnes Dorset Gloss., Harrow of a gate, the backer upright timber of a gate by which it is hung to its post. The one in the middle, between the harrow and the head, is the *middle spear, which is also the name of the upright beam that takes the two leaves of a barn's door. |
| 1784 G. Washington Diary 4 Oct. (1925) II. 326 The *middle States with the Country immediately back of them. 1848 J. F. Cooper Oak Openings I. xiii. 193 Who ever heard of the ‘tribe’ of New England, or..of the ‘tribe’ of the Middle States? 1912 M. Nicholson Hoosier Chron. 59 There had been an infusion of population from New England and the Middle States. |
| a 1825 Forby Voc. E. Anglia, *Middlestead, the compartment of a barn which contains the threshing floor; generally in the middle of the building. |
| 1605 Bacon Adv. Learn. i. vii. §1 Which honour [Apotheosis], being so high, had also a degree or *middle tearme. 1725 Watts Logic iii. ii, Syllogisms are divided into various Kinds, either according to the Question which is proved by them,..or according to the middle Term. |
| 1805 Shipwright's Vade-M. 117 *Middle timber. |
| 1909 Webster, *Middle tone. 1961 M. Levy Studio Dict. Art Terms 59 Half-tone, the tone value in a painting which is halfway between the dark and the light. Sometimes called Middle-Tone. |
| 1395 in Archæologia XXIV. 316 De quibus..expenduntur in j *mideltree imposito in port[is] Manerii per longitudinem. 1834 Brit. Husb. I. 159 A tongue, or middle⁓tree, or shafts, are alternately fixed to the axle of the fore wheels. |
| 1900 Westm. Gaz. 14 Mar. 3/2 His mental crises belong to a *middle-Victorian phase of thought. |
| 1962 *Middle-water [see distant-water s.v. distant a. 8]. 1967 Times Rev. Industry May 28/2 The near and middle-water fleet consists of boats between 80 and 140 feet long which sail mainly from Grimsby, Fleetwood, Lowestoft, Aberdeen, Milford Haven and North Shields for fishing grounds around the Faroes, in the North Sea and to the west of the British Isles. |
| a 1400 in Rel. Ant. I. 190 The *medyl weyn betuen ham two The coral is cleppyt also. |
| 1448 in Willis & Clark Cambridge (1886) II. 8 All the tymber that..shall be ocupyed..on the *Midelwalles and on the steires. 1611 Bible Ephes. ii. 14 Who..hath broken downe the middle wall of partition betweene vs. |
| [1611 Bible Judg. vii. 19 Gideon..came in the beginning of the middle watch.] 1851 H. Melville Whale xliii, It was the *middle watch—a fair moonlight. |
| 1889 *Middle weight [see feather-weight 3]. 1890 R. G. A. Allanson-Winn Boxing 82 ‘Middle’ weights. 1909 Westm. Gaz. 9 Feb. 12/4 Some fine wrestling has been seen, more especially in the middle-weight class. 1947 E. Gruhn Text Bk. Wrestling (ed. 4) 84 Middle-weight, up to 174 lb. (79 Kilos). 1955 J. Murray Weight Lifting iii. 56 The body-weight classes used in standard international lifting competition are as follows..1651/4 pounds—Middleweight. 1972 F. Butler Hist. Boxing in Brit. xix. 132 The middleweight division was started in England in 1786... The middleweights can claim more superb champions than any section outside the heavyweight. |
| 1898 M. H. Catherwood (title) Heroes of the *Middle West. 1909 Middle West [see dripped ppl. a.]. 1917 Nation (N.Y.) 17 May 589/2 The personal tour of the Secretary of the Treasury through the Middle West, to speak at public meetings, is a wise arrangement. 1949 Oxf. Jun. Encycl. III. 452/2 The Middle West region is oddly named, because the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri, which make it up, are really neither middle nor west. |
| 1909 ‘O. Henry’ Options 310 I'm only a little Middle-Western girl. 1916 A. Huxley Let. 30 June (1969) 103 Merest text-book papers, such as would be set by a Middle Western College out your way. 1967 Middle-western [see fraternity 7]. |
| 1893 L. M. Douglas Man. Pork Trade p. xiv (caption) Small and *Middle White Yorkshire Pigs. 1912 Middle White [see fatstock s.v. fat a. 14]. 1953 A. Jobson Househ. & Country Crafts vi. 65 Almost every county in England has produced its own breed of pigs, and we have amongst others Large and Middle White. |
| 1786 *Middle wick't [see bat n.2 3 c]. 1816 W. Lambert Cricketers' Guide (ed. 6) iii. 42 Middle Wicket Off. This man should stand on the off side, not far from the Bowler's wicket, and about 23 yards from the Striker's wicket. Ibid. 44 (heading) To cover the Point and Middle Wicket. 1833 J. Nyren Yng. Cricketer's Tutor (1893) 49–50 The middle wicket should stand on the off-side, not more than eleven yards from the bowler's wicket... There is no place in the whole field where so many struggles occur to save a run..as at the middle wicket. 1866 Routledge's Ev. Boy's Ann. 511 Thus, long-leg to one bowler may come to cover-point to the other; middle-wicket-on may be cover-slip, short-leg may be middle-wicket-off. |
| 1547 Act 1 Edw. VI, c. 6 §4 Such of the said Worsted Yarn as is called..*Middle-wuffe Yarn. |
| 1642 Rogers Naaman 452 Whether in youth or *middle yeares or old age. |
7. Comb. in parasynthetic
adjs., as
middle-coloured,
middle-growthed,
middle-horned,
middle statured,
† middle-witted,
middle woolled.
| 1849 Florist 195 Satisfaction, a very good-shaped *middle-coloured flower [Pelargonium]. |
| 1690 Lond. Gaz. No. 2607/4 John Boone, aged 17, a straight Youth, *middle growth'd. |
| 1811 W. H. Marshall Rev. Rep. Board Agric. III. 396 The cattle of Norfolk—evidently a variety of the *middlehorned breed, reduced in size [etc.]. 1846 M{supc}Culloch Acc. Brit. Empire (1854) I. 495 They may..be divided..into the four classes of middle-horned, long-horned, short-horned, and polled. |
| 1679 Trials of Wakeman, etc. 26 He was a *middle-statured man. |
| 1651 Walton Life Wotton d 4 in Reliq. W. (1672), Many *middle-witted men (which yet may mean well). 1826 K. Digby Broadst. Hon. (1848) III. Morus 116 There is nothing so easy as to catch the phraseology which middle-witted sophists regard as the stamp of men of judgment. |
| 1837 Youatt Sheep 304 Scarcely a *middle-woolled sheep can now be found in the whole of this county. |
B. n. 1. a. The middle point or part (of a line, area, volume, or anything that has spatial magnitude; also of a number, a period of time, a process, etc.).
to knock (a person) into the middle of next week: see
week n. 6 d.
| a 900 Cynewulf Elene 864 He asettan heht on þone middel þære mæran byriᵹ beamas mid bearhtme. c 1050 Voc. in Wr.-Wülcker 396/2 Ex centro, of midle. c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 85 Here lifes ende was bicumeliche þe middel and þe biginnenge. 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 1399 Aboute ierusalem þis noumbringe he bigan As in þe middel of þe world to noumbri eche man. c 1300 Havelok 2092 Aboute þe middel of þe nith Wok ubbe. 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. xvii. 189 Were þe myddel of myn honde ymaymed or ypersshed. c 1380 Wyclif Serm. Sel. Wks. I. 367 Þis gospel telliþ þe middil of a storie of Seint Joon Baptist. 1420 E.E. Wills (1882) 46, 1. bord mausure with a bond of seluer, & ouerguld, wyth a prent in þe myddylle. c 1450 Merlin 108 After the myddill of August, after that Arthur was crowned, he held court roiall, grete and mervelouse. 1530 Palsgr. 245/1 Myddle of the day, midy. 1594 Shakes. Rich. III, iii. v. 2 Canst thou..Murther thy breath in middle of a word, And then againe begin. 1611 Bible Judg. ix. 37 See, there come people downe by the middle of the land. 1715 Leoni tr. Palladio's Archit. (1742) II. 11 The middle of the upmost Wall ought to be perpendicular with the middle of the nethermost. 1749 J. Martyn tr. Virg. Bucol. Life Virgil (1820) p. lxxix, The fourth Georgick, from the middle to the end, was [etc.]. 1772 Priestley Inst. Relig. (1782) I. 413 Pausanias..wrote about the middle of the second century. 1863 Chambers's Encycl. V. 715/2 In 1395 they [sc. the Jews] were indefinitely banished from the middle of France. 1865 Tylor Early Hist. Man vi. 133 The heads, middles, and roots of plants. 1902 A. B. Davidson Bibl. & Lit. Ess. 266 Beginnings or middles or ends of poems. |
b. U.S. A strip of unplanted ground between rows of cotton, corn, etc. Usu.
pl.| 1829 L. Covington Diary 28 May in Documentary Hist. Amer. Industr. Society (1910) I. 238 Two Ploughs breaking middles in Popular tree cut. 1907 T. F. Hunt Forage & Fiber Crops in Amer. 352 The field is made up into alternate beds and middles or into ‘back’ furrows and ‘dead’ furrows. 1946 Democrat 11 Apr. 1/5 Two and three year old kudzu stands that have not covered the middles will be greatly helped if the middles are broken out. |
† 2. a. The position of being among or surrounded by (a number of people) or within (a town, etc.);
= midst. Chiefly in
phr. in the middle of = in the midst of, among.
Obs.| a 1000 Ags. Ps. (Spelman) cxxxv. 11 Se ðe alædde Israhel of middele heora. c 1000 Ags. Gosp. Mark ix. 36 Þa nam he anne cnapan & ᵹe-sette on hyra middele. c 1380 Wyclif Sel. Wks. III. 342 But oonhede on heed of holi Chirche is Jesus Crist here wiþ us, þat is ever in þe myddil of þree þat ben gedrid in his name. 1382 ― Gen. xviii. 26 If Y shal fynde in Sodom fifti riȝtwis in the myddil of the cytee, I shal forȝyue to al the place for hem. a 1400 Transl. N.T. (Selwyn MS.) 2 Cor. vi. 17 (Paues 69) Wherfore God seyþ, Goo ȝe a-wey from þe myddel of hem. c 1400 Mandeville (Roxb.) Pref. 2 He will ger crie it openly in þe middell of a toune. 1548 Udall, etc. Erasm. Par. Acts xxvii. 18–26 Than Paul standyng in the mydle amonge them, sayed [etc.]. 1760–72 H. Brooke Fool of Qual. (1809) III. 121 [He] is come to rob me in broad day, and in the middle of my own people. |
b. in the middle of: while (something) is going on; ‘in the thick of’.
Cf. midst.
| 1609 J. More in Buccleuch MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.) 82 As I was yesterday in the middle of removing to my house in the Old Bayley, I [etc.]. 1760–72 H. Brooke Fool of Qual. (1809) II. 111, I went and went again, in the middle of my wants, and in the middle of my sorrows, to ask..for his pay from the Admiralty. 1822 Shelley Faust ii. 373 A red mouse in the middle of her singing Sprung from her mouth. 1875 Jowett Plato (ed. 2) I. 373, I have often been stopped in the middle of a speech. |
c. Slang
phr. in the middle: in a difficult, dangerous, or untenable position; in trouble.
slang (
orig. U.S.).
| 1930 Amer. Mercury Dec. 457/1 What's the idea? Trying to put me in the middle with the law? 1943 R. Chandler Lady in Lake (1944) xxxiv. 179 The other guy could have knocked him out to put him in the middle. 1954 ‘N. Blake’ Whisper in Gloom ii. xvi. 217, I still don't like it. How d'ya know he's not leaving us in the middle? 1972 J. Burmeister Running Scared x. 131, I am the man in the middle. If your note giving my location should go astray..I could quietly starve to death. |
3. a. The middle part of the human body; the waist.
| 971 Blickl. Hom. 141 Hie ᵹegripan on hire middel. c 1205 Lay. 28069 Þa leo me orn foren to and iueng me bi þan midle. 1297 R. Glouc. (Rolls) 8962 Gurde aboute hire middel a uair linne ssete. ? a 1366 Chaucer Rom. Rose 1032 Yong she was,..Gente, and in hir middel smalle. ? a 1400 Morte Arth. 4168 Schuldirs and scheldys thay schrede to the hawnches, And medilles thourghe mayles thay merkene in sondire! c 1470 Henry Wallace vii. 307 The myddyll off ane he mankit ner in twa. 1494 in Lett. & Papers Rich. III & Hen. VII (Rolls) I. 400 [Ladies] with great chenys of gold about their middlys, and mervyleuse riche bees a bowt their nekkes. 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 3 Aboue y⊇ myddle he was the moost amiable stature of a man. 1653 H. Cogan tr. Pinto's Trav. xlvi. 268 The Water came up to our Middles. 1712 Addison Spect. No. 407 ¶5 Stroaking the sides of a long Wigg that reaches down to his Middle. 1769 E. Bancroft Guiana 370 A piece of coarse blue, or brown linen, which is applied to the middle in both sexes. 1811 Sporting Mag. XXXVIII. 220 They hold each other tight by the middle. 1843 Borrow Bible in Spain xxxi, He has got it buckled round his middle beneath his pantaloons. |
| Comb. 1894 Field 1 Dec. 838/1, I sit comfortably, middle-deep under a writing table. |
b. The part of a side of bacon which is left when the fore-end and the gammon are removed.
| 1892 P. L. Simmonds Dict. Trade Products (rev. ed.) Suppl. 473/2 Middles,..a name for sides of bacon and pork, there are long and short middles. 1917 G. J. Nicholls Bacon & Hams 70 These middles are cured in dry salt. 1923 R. E. Davies Pigs & Bacon Curing 29 The side may be cut into three parts, comprising the fore-end, the middle, and the gammon with corner. |
4. A mean, something intermediate between two extremes of quality or degree.
excluded middle (Logic): see
excluded ppl. a.
| a 1240 Sawles Warde in Cott. Hom. 247 Þat ha leare ham mete þat me meosure hat þe middel of twa uueles. Ibid. 255 For ne mei na wunne ne na flesches licunge..bringe me ouer þe midel of mesure ant of mete. 1340 Ayenb. 249 Sobreté ne is oþer þing þanne to loki riȝte mesure þet alneway halt þane middel ine to moche and to lite. 1626 Bacon Sylva §616 Bulbous Roots, Fibrous, Roots and Hirsute Roots... The Hirsute is a Middle betweene both. 1667 Decay Chr. Piety v. 72 There being in this case no middle between devout reverence and horrid blasphemy. 1683 A. D. Art Converse 46 These two extreams we must avoid and search a middle. 1745 De Foe's Eng. Tradesman (1841) I. xxii. 209 To keep the safe middle between these extremes. 1790 Burke Fr. Rev. 92 The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes:..The rights of men are in a sort of middle. |
† 5. An intermediate cause or agency.
Obs.| a 1225 Ancr. R. 180 Þeos cumeð also of God, auh nout ase doð þe oðre, wiðuten euerich middel. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. iv. §30. 468 The worshipping (besides one supreme God) of other created Beings,..as middles or mediators betwixt Him and Men. |
† 6. a. An intervening point or part in space, time, or arrangement; something intermediate.
Obs.| 1665 Manley Grotius' Low C. Warres 397 The little River of Neths, scituate in the middle between Antwerp and Mechlin. 1667 Milton P.L. ix. 605, I..with capacious mind Considered all things visible in Heav'n, Or Earth, or Middle, all things fair and good. |
b. Something placed in a central position.
| 1796 Ld. Colchester Diary (1861) I. 35 The second course had a pig at top, a capon at bottom, and the two centre middles were turkey and a larded Guinea fowl. |
† 7. = medium n. 4.
Obs.| 1570 Dee Math. Pref. cj, So that both theyr mouynges be in ayre, or both in water: or in any one Middle. |
8. ellipt. a. Logic.
= middle term. (
Cf. medium n. 2).
| 1826 Whately Logic ii. iii. §2. (1827) 92 From negative premises you can infer nothing. For in them the Middle is pronounced to disagree with both extremes. |
b. Gram. = middle voice (see A. 4 a).
| 1818 Blomfield tr. Matthiæ's Gk. Gram. II. 712 The proper signification of the middle is most evident in the aorists. 1906 J. H. Moulton Gram. N.T. Grk. I. 155 As a matter of fact, the proportion of strictly reflexive middles is exceedingly small. |
9. Naut. = ‘
middle ground’ (see A. 6).
| 1702 Lond. Gaz. No. 3844/4 The Sands..of the small Middle, in the Narrow off of Winterton near Yarmouth. 1801 Nelson in Duncan Life (1806) 136 The Agamemnon..could not weather the shoal of the Middle. |
10. Paper-making. The sheet, or one of the sheets, of inferior paper placed between the two outer sheets in making pasteboard.
| 1859 Stationers' Handbk. 73 Middles, a paper used for forming the middle or inner portion of card and pasteboard. |
11. Assoc. Football. A return of the ball from one of the wings to mid-field in front of the goal.
| 1899 G. O. Smith Football vi. (Badm.) 108 A middle should never be made high up in the air unless the forwards of one's side are a heavy lot. 1902 Field 1 Mar. 314/1 Evans actually found the mark from a middle by Corbett, but was pronounced offside. |
12. (Originally
middle article.) A newspaper article of a particular class (treating more or less discursively some social, ethical, or literary subject), such as is in certain journals placed between the leading articles and the reviews.
| 1862 J. F. Stephen Let. 10 Apr. Life (1895) 175 Last night I finished a middle at two. 1893 G. Allen Scallywag III. 68 Working away with all his might at a clever middle for an evening newspaper. Paul was distinctly successful in what the trade technically knows as middles. |
13. Cricket.
= middle guard (see A. 6).
| 1866 ‘Capt. Crawley’ Cricket 22 The batsman should..after asking the umpire for middle, and taking his block at a bat's length from the stumps, stand..in the position shewn. 1904 F. C. Holland Cricket 1 What guard is to be chosen? Some cricketers take centre, some the leg stump, and many middle and leg. 1960 I. Peebles Bowler's Turn 187 He had batted on middle and off and shown a readiness to hook. |
14. colloq. A middle-class person.
| 1955 T. H. Pear Eng. Social Differences 101 Wealthy ‘middles’ are now admitted to some formerly exclusive hunts. 1967 Listener 21 Dec. 802/1 If a man spoke rather loudly..keeping his vowels open, then he was an Upper. If he attempted all this and just failed, then he was a Middle. |
▪ II. middle, v. (
ˈmɪd(ə)l)
[f. middle n. Cf. Du. middelen, G. mitteln, ON. miðla.] † 1. intr. ? To be at the middle point; ? to intervene.
Obs.| 1382 Wyclif John vii. 14 Forsoþe now the feeste day medlinge [Vulg. mediante], or goynge bitwixe, Jhesu wente vp in to the temple. |
† 2. intr. or absol. To perform some kind of operation in the making of iron wire (
cf. middleman 1).
Obs.| 1435 Coventry Leet Bk., For-alsomyche as Joh. Stafford, Joh. Blakemon, sen.,..& Wal. Bonde heldon for the most part as well smethyng, brakyng middelyng and cardwire⁓draweng. |
† 3. trans. To take a middle view of. Also
to middle it (contemptuously): to adopt a middle course.
Obs.| 1648 Manton Spir. Languish. 16 We content ourselves with a lukewarmnesse and a mambling of profession midling it between Christ and the world. 1748 Richardson Clarissa I. 173 To middle the matter between both, it is pity, that [etc.]. |
4. To find the middle of; to bisect.
| 1703 Moxon Mech. Exerc. 268 Draw the Line ab, bisect, or middle it. |
5. Naut. To fold or double in the middle.
| 1841 R. H. Dana Seaman's Man. 76 Get up a hawser, middle it, and take a slack clove-hitch at the centre. c 1860 H. Stuart Seaman's Catech. 27 How do you make a reef point? By taking five foxes and middling them. 1867 Smyth Sailor's Word-bk. 479 Middling a sail, arranging it for bending to the yard. 1882 Nares Seamanship (ed. 6) 124 The sail is middled and hauled taut out. |
6. a. techn. To place in the middle.
| 1883 W. H. Richards Textbk. Milit. Topogr. (1888) 119 All the micrometers should be kept nearly ‘middled’, or half way through their nuts. 1898 Chamb. Jrnl. Mar. 188 A grandfather's clock with a bullet-hole nicely middled in its case. 1899 Daily News 25 July 6/6 We started to heave in on the starboard cable in order to middle the ship between her anchors. |
b. intr. To fit into the middle.
| 1888 Hasluck Model Engin. Handybk. (1900) 67 If these holes do not exactly middle, a small round file can be used to draw the hole over as required. |
7. trans. in
Assoc. Football. To return (the ball) from one of the wings to mid-field in front of goal; to ‘centre’. Also
absol.| 1871 Field 28 Jan. 61/3 The ball which had been previously middled by A. M. Jones, was driven through the goal. 1902 Ibid. 1 Mar. 314/1 Corbett made a run and middled. |
8. slang. To befool, cheat.
| 1869 E. Farmer Scrap Bk. (ed. 6) 53 For I've been hum-bugged, middled, got the best on. |
9. Cricket. To strike (a ball) with the middle of the bat; also with the bowler or the stroke as object.
| 1954 J. H. Fingleton Ashes crown Year xi. 112 Hutton was in grand form. He middled Lindwall with confidence. 1955 I. Peebles On Ashes iii. 29 The batsman started by showing every sign of good form..middling his strokes with ominous regularity. 1955 Miller & Whitington Cricket Typhoon x. 189 May began to middle the ball. |
▪ III. middle obs. form of
meddle.