middle
an area that is approximately central within some larger region
How often you will meet it
Rank 966 of 71,295 words measured. It occurs 18,917 times across 155,139 chapters — 0.009% of every word in the library.
It belongs to the first 1,000 words, the band worth learning before any other.
What it means
noun
- an area that is approximately central within some larger region also: center, centre, heart, eye it is in the center of townthey ran forward into the heart of the struggle
- an intermediate part or section A whole is that which has beginning, middle, and end
- the middle area of the human torso (usually in front) also: midriff, midsection young American women believe that a bare midriff is fashionable
- time between the beginning and the end of a temporal period the middle of the warrain during the middle of April
adjective
- being neither at the beginning nor at the end in a series also: in-between, mediate adolescence is an awkward in-between agein a mediate position
- equally distant from the extremes also: center, halfway, midway
- of a stage in the development of a language or literature between earlier and later stages Middle English is the English language from about 1100 to 1500Middle Gaelic
- between an earlier and a later period of time in the middle yearsin his middle thirties
middle in real books
Each sentence below was written by a published author and is taken from a different book in our library. Open one to read the passage it came from, with narration.
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It was about the middle of November.
Christmas with Grandma Elsie · Martha Finley · Chapter 1
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Had he taken a higher place than the Middle Shell?
The Hill: A Romance of Friendship · Horace Annesley Vachell · Chapter 1
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The market-place was an open square in the middle of the town.
The Dutch Twins · Lucy Fitch Perkins · Chapter 1
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But about the middle of the winter Eady’s horses fell ill of a local epidemic.
Ethan Frome · Edith Wharton · Chapter 1
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He was past middle life and plain, but was of good height and had an air.
Emily Fox-Seton · Frances Hodgson Burnett · Chapter 1