Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • preposition Surrounded by; amid.
  • adjective Middle; central.
  • adjective Being the part in the middle or center.
  • adjective Linguistics Of, relating to, or being a vowel produced with the tongue in a position approximately intermediate between high and low, as the vowel in but.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • An abbreviation of amid, used in poetry.
  • Middle; being the middle part or midst.
  • Being between; intermediate; intervening: only in inseparable compounds: as, midrib, midriff, midwicket.
  • noun Middle; midst.
  • With: a preposition formerly in common use, but now entirely superseded by with. It remains only in the compound midwife.
  • noun A midshipman. Also middy.
  • noun A dialectal form of might.
  • noun An abbreviation of middle (voice).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • preposition See amid.
  • adjective Denoting the middle part.
  • adjective Occupying a middle position; middle
  • adjective (Phon.) Made with a somewhat elevated position of some certain part of the tongue, in relation to the palate; midway between the high and the low; -- said of certain vowel sounds. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 10, 11.
  • noun obsolete Middle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Denoting the middle part.
  • adjective Occupying a middle position; middle.
  • adjective linguistics Made with a somewhat elevated position of some certain part of the tongue, in relation to the palate; midway between the high and the low; said of certain vowel sounds; as, a (ale), / (/ll), / (/ld).
  • noun computing Mobile information device
  • noun archaic middle
  • preposition obsolete With.
  • preposition Amid.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective used in combination to denote the middle

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English midd; see medhyo- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of amid.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English mid ("with, in conjunction with, in company with, together with, into the presence of, through, by means of, by, among, in, at (time), in the sight of, opinion of", preposition), from Proto-Germanic *midi (“with”), from Proto-Indo-European *medʰi-, *meta (“with”). Cognate with North Frisian mits ("with"), Dutch met ("with"), German mit ("with"), Danish med ("with"), Icelandic með ("with"), Ancient Greek μετά (metá, "among, between, with"), Albanian me ("with, together"), Sanskrit  (smat, "together, at the same time").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English mid, midde, from Old English midd ("mid, middle, midway"), from Proto-Germanic *midjaz (“mid, middle”, adjective), from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“between, in the middle, middle”). Cognate with Dutch mits ("provided that"), German mitte ("center, middle, mean"), Icelandic miðr ("middle", adjective), Latin medius ("middle, medium"). See also middle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Acronym. From "mobile information device".

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English mid, midde, from Old English midd ("midst, middle", noun), from Proto-Germanic *midjan, *medjōn, *midjô (“middle, center”) < *midjaz, from Proto-Indo-European *medhy- (“between, in the middle, middle”), *medʰyo-. Cognate with German Mitte ("center, middle, midst"), Danish midje ("middle"), Icelandic midja ("middle"). See also median, Latin medianus.

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Examples

  • Þa ferde he mid micel færd into engle [la] nd. ⁊ wan castles. ⁊ te king ferde agenes hi {m} mid  {180} micel mare ferd. ⁊ þoþwæthere fuhtten hi noht. oc ferden þe ærceb {iscop} ⁊ te wise me ` n´ betwux heo {m}. ⁊ makede ð sahte ð te king sculde ben lauerd ⁊ king wile he liuede.

    Selections from early Middle English, 1130-1250 Part I: Texts Joseph Hall

  • + Ne beo in hire naþing iwrat bute chirche bisocnie ⁊ beode to criste ⁊ eoten ⁊ dri {n} ken mid griðe ⁊ mid  {80} gledscipe.

    Selections from early Middle English, 1130-1250 Part I: Texts Joseph Hall

  • The term mid-size terror bird sounds kind of bizarre at first, as though terror birds, whatever they might be, come in a range of sizes, all of them a bit scary - sort of like coffee options at Starbucks.

    TIME.com: Top Stories 2010

  • One of the finest achievements occurred the other night with Celtic defying history and winning a UEFA Champions League tie against a well-oiled Russian team challenging for the title mid-way through their season.

    The Roar - Your Sports Opinion Jamie McTaggart 2009

  • Although the term mid-cap may be a stretch for a company with a market cap of $8 billion, I don't think that Safeway is a large enough company to accurately be described as a large-cap.

    SeekingAlpha.com: Home Page 2009

  • If you start looking at ISV-502, I use the term mid-margin diseases; blepharoconjunctivitis is a part of mid-margin disease.

    unknown title 2008

  • If you start looking at ISV-502, I use the term mid-margin diseases; blepharoconjunctivitis is a part of mid-margin disease.

    Biotech Sector and Stocks Analysis from Seeking Alpha 2008

  • If you start looking at ISV-502, I use the term mid-margin diseases; blepharoconjunctivitis is a part of mid-margin disease.

    unknown title 2008

  • If you start looking at ISV-502, I use the term mid-margin diseases; blepharoconjunctivitis is a part of mid-margin disease.

    unknown title 2008

  • Instead he calls for the party to revive the spirit of what he calls the "mid nineties modernisers":For those mid nineties modernisers, making the party comfortable was never enough.

    Douglas Alexander delivers jolt to Tories as he says Labour can win 2011

  • The age AI has ushered in the age of "mid" – not great, but not horrid either.

    I stumbled upon LLM Kryptonite and no one wants to fix it Mark Pesce 2024

Comments

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  • noting a rise in colloquial use of "mid" as an adjective (and maybe a noun?) denoting risible mediocrity. Some examples in the Twitter feed

    June 30, 2022

  • Well noted, ry. It was a 2021 Word of the Year nominee. It came from cannabis culture - originally referring to "mid-grade weed", then expanding in use through hip hop and Black Twitter to talk about middling music, media, and celebrities. smoking mid, middest of the mid, it's mid af. It's featured in the upcoming Among the New Words part of the American Dialect Society's journal along with other nominees like hard pants and horny jail.

    July 5, 2022