different between middle vs midmost

English

Alternative forms

• myddle (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English middel, from Old English middel, middle (“middle, centre, waist”), from Proto-Germanic *midl?, *midil?, *medal? (“middle”), a diminutive of Proto-Germanic *midj? (“middle, midst”) (compare *midjaz (“mid, middle”, adjective)), from Proto-Indo-European *méd?yos (“between, in the middle, middle”). Cognate with West Frisian middel, Dutch middel, German mittel (“middle”, adjective), German Mittel (“middle, means”, noun), Danish middel (“means, agent, medicine”). Related also to Swedish medel (“means, medium”), Icelandic meðal (“means, medicine”). See also mid.

Pronunciation

• (US) IPA^(key): /?m?d?l/, [?m?.???]
• (UK) IPA^(key): /?m?d?l/, [?m?.d??], [?m?.d?]
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /?m?d?l/, [?m??.d??], [?m??.d?], [?m??.?-]
• (General New Zealand) IPA^(key): /?m?d?l/, [?m?.d?(?)], [?m?.?-]
• Rhymes: -?d?l

Noun

middle (plural middles)

1. A centre, midpoint.

2. The part between the beginning and the end.

3. (cricket) The middle stump.
4. The central part of a human body; the waist.
   • Fasting In A Fast World

     If I have a diet plan and stick to it, it is easy for me to have control over my middle.

5. (grammar) The middle voice.

Synonyms

• (centre): centre, center, midpoint; see also Thesaurus:midpoint
• (part between the beginning and the end): centre, center, midst

Translations

Adjective

middle (not comparable)

1. Located in the middle; in between.

   the middle point

   middle name, Middle English, Middle Ages

2. Central.
3. (grammar) Pertaining to the middle voice.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:intermediate

Translations

Derived terms

Related terms

• mid-
• middle- (in compounds; not a prefix)
• middling

Verb

middle (third-person singular simple present middles, present participle middling, simple past and past participle middled)

1. (obsolete) To take a middle view of. [17th–18th c.]
   • 1748, Samuel Richardson, Clarissa, Letter 27:

     And now, to middle the matter between both, it is pity, that the man they favour has not that sort of merit which a person of a mind so delicate as that of Miss Harlowe might reasonably expect in a husband.

2. (obsolete, nautical, transitive) To double (a rope) into two equal portions; to fold in the middle. [19th c.]

Middle English

Adjective

middle

1. inflection of middel:
   1. weak singular
   2. strong/weak plural

English

Etymology

From Old English medemest, superlative of medeme (“middling”), from Proto-Germanic *medumô; the word may be analysed as mid +? -most.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?m?dm??st/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?m?dmo?st/
• Hyphenation: mid?most

Adjective

midmost (not comparable)

1. In the exact middle, or nearest to the exact middle; middlemost
   • 1908, Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows:

     A wide half-circle of foam and glinting lights and shining shoulders of green water, the great weir closed the backwater from bank to bank, troubled all the quiet surface with twirling eddies and floating foam-streaks, and deadened all other sounds with its solemn and soothing rumble. In midmost of the stream, embraced in the weir's shimmering arm-spread, a small island lay anchored, fringed close with willow and silver birch and alder.

Translations