Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- proper noun Alternative spelling of
middle-earth .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word middle earth.
Examples
-
So, I had no knowledge of the world or history of middle earth.
Review: The Dark Tide by Dennis L. McKiernan Jeff C 2008
-
So, I had no knowledge of the world or history of middle earth.
Archive 2008-10-01 Jeff C 2008
-
Its branches reach to the nine upper levels of the heavens, its trunk is in middle earth, where we and the animals live, and its roots are in the eight-layered Lower World.
The Arctic Oil Rush Shoumatoff, Alex 2008
-
The power is in me from behind the sun, And from middle earth.
The Plumed Serpent 2003
-
For instance, when I was into HP I wanted to be a student at Hogwarts, when I was really into LOTR I wanted to be an elf in middle earth, etc.
chsturtle Diary Entry chsturtle 2003
-
More minutely pressed upon the subject of her familiar, she said she had never known him while among the living, but was aware that the person so calling himself was one who had, in his lifetime, actually been known in middle earth as Thome Reid, officer to the Laird of Blair, and who died at Pinkie.
-
More minutely pressed upon the subject of her familiar, she said she had never known him while among the living, but was aware that the person so calling himself was one who had, in his lifetime, actually been known in middle earth as Thome Reid, officer to the Laird of Blair, and who died at Pinkie.
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft Walter Scott 1801
-
Frankenstein for years but with the director currently in middle earth -- directing
Mania News Feed Jarrod Sarafin 2010
-
Looks like Lord of the Rings: Conquest was the last time Electronic Arts was delving into the realm of middle earth.
Mania News Feed 2009
thesuperiorbeing commented on the word middle earth
I'm really surprised no one has listed this. Anyway, a mythical land in which takes place the story of The Lord of the Rings.
January 17, 2008
yarb commented on the word middle earth
It is odd that this was unlisted. Well, it is now. I always wondered whether there was an upper earth and a lower earth, or an inner earth and an outer earth, too? I mean, middle with respect to what?
January 17, 2008
jennarenn commented on the word middle earth
Poor little Wordie is just over a year old. It has only just started tottering off towards the outskirts of the English language.
January 17, 2008
reesetee commented on the word middle earth
Ah, but check out middle-earth (and colleen's Lord of the Rings list). It's all about the hyphens. ;-)
January 17, 2008
vanishedone commented on the word middle earth
This is supposed to be a quotation from one of Tolkien's letters. (I grabbed it from Wikipedia.)
January 17, 2008
yarb commented on the word middle earth
Thanks, VanishedOne. That's more or less what I thought. I'd like there to be an inner and outer earth, too, but that's more Alice in Wonderland / HG Wells than good old JRR.
January 18, 2008
thesuperiorbeing commented on the word middle earth
I was suspecting that... very cool. Anyway, thanks for the quality comment.
January 18, 2008
seanahan commented on the word middle earth
oikoumene?
January 21, 2008
inkedpolyglot commented on the word middle earth
the Earth, world in which corporal begins live; between the sky world and the underworld.
J.R.R. Tolkien's 'Middle Earth' "is ... not my own invention. It is a modernization or alteration ... of an old word for the inhabited world of Men, the oikoumene: middle because thought of vaguely as set amidst the encircling Seas and (in the northern-imagination) between ice of the North and the fire of the South. O. English middan-geard, mediaeval E. midden-erd, middle-erd. —J.R.R. Tolkien, Letters, no. 21110
It occurs in Early Modern English as a development of the Middle English word middel-erde (cf. modern German Mittelerde), which developed in turn from Old English middan?eard (the g being soft, i.e. pronounced like y in "yard". By the time of the Middle English period, middangeard was being written as middellærd, midden-erde, or middel-erde. A slight difference of wording, but not general meaning, had taken place as middangeard properly means "middle enclosure" instead of "middle-earth". Nevertheless middangeard has been commonly translated as "middle-earth" and Tolkien followed this course. Tolkien first encountered the term middangeard in an Old English fragment he studied in 1914:
Éala éarendel engla beorhtast / ofer middangeard monnum sended.
Hail Earendel, brightest of angels / above the middle-earth sent unto men.
This quote is from the second of the fragmentary remnants of the Crist poems by Cynewulf. - source wikipedia
August 2, 2009