middle earth
Forms: see middle and earth n.
1. [An etymologizing perversion of ] The earth, as placed between heaven and hell, or as supposed to occupy the centre of the universe. Now only arch., sometimes applied to the real world in contradistinction to fairyland.
| c 1275 Lay. 7205 He þohte to bi-winne mid strengþe and mid ginne al þe middelerþes [c 1205 middel eærdes] lond. Ibid. 9066 Com a þisse middilherþe [c 1205 middel ærde] hone maidenes sune. a 1300 Cursor M. 8003 Bituix þe midel erth and þe lift. 1390 Gower Conf. III. 94 Fro the seconde, as bokes sein, The moiste dropes of the reyn Descenden into Middilerthe. c 1440 York Myst. ix. 158 Fadir, what may þis meruaylle mene? Wher-to made god medilerth and man? 1522 World & Child (Roxb.) A v, All mery medell erthe maketh mencyon of me. 1598 Shakes. Merry W. v. v. 84 But stay, I smell a man of middle earth. 1600 W. Watson Decacordon (1602) 238 O monster of mankinde fitter for hell, then middle earth. 1813 Scott Trierm. i. ix, That maid is born of middle earth, And may of man be won. 1819 Crabbe T. of Hall x, A kind of beings who are never found On middle-earth, but grow on fairy-ground. 1860 Hawthorne Transform. xxxviii, It is difficult to imagine it [sc. Catholicism] a contrivance of mere man. Its mighty machinery was forged and put together, not on middle earth, but either above or below. |
† 2. The middle of the earth. Obs.
sea of middle earth, middle earth sea, the Mediterranean. middle earth ocean, an imaginary ocean in the middle of the earth.
| 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) I. 53 Þe grete see of myddel erþe bygynneþ in þe west at Hercules pilers. 1494 Fabyan Chron. v. lxxvii. 56 In the South see of Myddell Erth. 1555 W. Watreman Fardle Facions i. iii. 34 The floude of Nilus..passeth into the middle earth sea, with seuen armes. 1593 Norden Spec. Brit., M'sex. i. 8 The forme of this land is Trianguler, much like Cicilia an Island in the middle-earth sea. 1613 Purchas Pilgrimage vii. ii. 663 So would those good men drowne a great part of the African and American World..by their imagined middle-earth Ocean. |