medial, a. and n.
(ˈmiːdɪəl)
[ad. late L. mediālis, f. medius middle: see medium. Cf. F. médial.]
A. adj.
1. a. Occupying a middle or intermediate position; middle; (of a letter, etc.) occurring in the middle of a word. medial to: situated in the middle of; intermediate between.
| 1721 Bailey, Medial, belonging to the middle. 1741 Boyse Patience 235 Beneath the scorching of the medial line [i.e. the equator]. 1807 F. Wrangham Serm. Transl. Script. 14 This province may be regarded as medial to Persia, Tartary, Tibet. 1824 J. Johnson Typogr. II. xii. 309 The characters assume a different shape according to their situation, whether initial, medial, final, or single. 1829 Coleridge in Lit. Rem. (1839) IV. 28 The understanding is in all respects a medial and mediate faculty, and has therefore two extremities or poles, the sensual..and the intellectual. 1881 Tyndall Floating Matters Air 228 In regard to the supply of oxygen, there is a medial zone favourable to the play of vitality, beyond which, on both sides, life cannot exist. 1902 Encycl. Brit. XXV. 360/2 A great extension of Medial plains, stretching in moderate altitude from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. |
b. spec. in Anat., Zool., etc. (Cf. median a.1)
| 1803 Barclay New Anat. Nomencl. 7 What I should call the proximal, medial, and distal phalanges. 1846 Dana Zooph. (1848) 284 A continuous medial line of large polyps, with others smaller, scattered on each side. 1880 Günther Fishes 313 Medial and paired fins. 1899 Allbutt's Syst. Med. VII. 390 One set of these vessels, the medial, enters the medulla in the middle line. |
2. Pertaining to a mathematical mean or average. medial line: a line which is a mean proportional between two other lines; also medial area (see quot.).
| 1570 Billingsley Euclid x. xxiii, A right line commensurable to a mediall line, is also a mediall line. 1704 J. Harris Lex. Techn. I, Alligation Medial, teaches how to find a Mean in the Price, Quantity, or Quality between the Extreams. 1811 Pinkerton Petral. I. 345 According to a medial sum of many analyses. 1908 T. L. Heath tr. Euclid's Elements III. x. 50 A medial straight line..is so called because it is a mean proportional between two rational straight lines commensurable in square only. Ibid. 55 It is in the Porism that we have the first mention of a medial area. It is the area which is equal to the square on a medial straight line. |
3. Of average or ordinary dimensions; occas. of ordinary attainments.
| 1778 W. H. Marshall Minutes Agric. 18 Aug. an. 1775, The distance was medial—not half a mile. 1804 C. B. Brown tr. Volney's View Soil U.S. 113 The general or medial temperature of a country. 1830 Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 185 The united waters have only..a medial width of about three quarters of a mile. 1894 Harper's Mag. Jan. 273/2 Exceptional qualifications..are lacking to the medial man. |
4. Mus. medial accent (see quot. 1879). medial cadence, in the ecclesiastical modes, a cadence closing with the mediant of a mode (Grove Dict. Mus. 1880); in modern music, a cadence in which the leading chord is inverted. medial consonances (see quot. 1885).
| 1809 J. W. Callcott Mus. Gram. (ed. 2) 221 When the leading Harmony of any Cadence is not radical, but inverted, the Cadence is, in this Work, termed Medial, and is used to express an incomplete Close. 1879 Helmore Plain Song 105 The Medial Accent is the fall of a minor third from the dominant or reciting note. 1885 A. J. Ellis tr. Helmholtz' Sensations of Tone 194 The major Sixth and the major Third, which may be called medial consonances. |
† 5. Phonetics. (See B. 2.) Obs.
| 1833 Penny Cycl. I. 379/2 The middle (or medial) letters, g, d, b. |
B. n.
1. A medial letter; a form of a letter used in the middle of a word.
| 1776 J. Richardson Arab. Gram. 17 The initial of the first, a medial of the second, and the final of the third [letter] are generally taken. 1817 Colebrooke Algebra, etc. Dissert. p. xii, Diophantus employs the inverted medial of ἔλλειψις, defect or want..to indicate a negative quantity. He prefixes that mark {udpsi} to the quantity in question. |
† 2. Phonetics. A voiced mute; = media 1. Obs.
| 1833 Penny Cycl. I. 380/2 The three medials, β, γ, δ. 1848 E. Guest in Trans. Philol. Soc. III. 174 Three medials, as they are called b, g, d. 1880 Earle Philol. Eng. Tongue (ed. 3) 5 If the Classical word begins with an aspirate, the English word begins with a medial. |