midst

See also: 'midst

English

Alternative forms

• midest, middest, middis, middst, myddest, mydest, myddis, myddst, mydst (all obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English middes, midst, myddest (“middle”), from Old English midde, reshaped in Middle English phrases like in middes (“in the middle”) by analogy with adverbs in -(e)s; also compare Old English on middan, tōmiddes. Forms in -(e)st are probably due to influence of superlatives.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɪdst/, [mɪdst], [mɪtst]

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪdst

Noun

midst (plural midsts)

1. (often literary) A place in the middle of something; may be used of a literal or metaphorical location.
   • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:

     Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.

   • 1995, Mary Ellen Pitts, Toward a Dialogue of Understandings: Loren Eiseley and the Critique of Science, page 225:

     At dawn, in the midst of a mist that is both literal and the unformed shifting of thought, he encounters a young fox pup playfully shaking a bone.

   • 2002, Nathan W. Schlueter, quoting Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream, 1963, speech, quoted in One Dream Or Two?: Justice in America and in the Thought of Martin Luther King, Jr., page 89:

     As he said in "I Have a Dream," the Negro "lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity."

Synonyms

• centre, center, middle

Translations

place in the middle of something

• Armenian: մեջտեղ (hy) (meǰteġ)
• Bulgarian: среда (bg) f (sreda)
• Egyptian: (qꜣb)
• Finnish: keskus (fi), keskusta (fi), sisin (fi), ydin (fi)
• French: centre (fr), milieu (fr)
• German: Mitten (de) f pl, Mitte (de) f
• Gothic: 𐌼𐌹𐌳𐌿𐌼𐌰 f (miduma)
• Ottoman Turkish: مركز (merkez)
• Sicilian: menzu (scn) m, centru (scn) m
• Spanish: centro (es)
• Ukrainian: середина (uk) f (seredyna)

Preposition

midst

1. (rare) Among, in the middle of; amid.

   Mildred comes home from work early only to discover her husband, Robert, midst of a lewd affair with their neighbor, Gladys.

   • 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC:

     She puts the period often from his place ; And 'midst the sentence so her accent breaks

Quotations

• For quotations using this term, see Citations:midst.

Synonyms

• amid
• amidst

Derived terms

• in the midst of
• in one's midst

Translations

in the middle of

• Arabic: فِي مُنْتَصَف (fī muntaṣaf), وَسْطَ (wasṭa)

  Egyptian Arabic: في نص (fi noṣṣ)

• Bulgarian: сред (bg) (sred)
• Finnish: keskellä (fi)
• German: inmitten (de)
• Russian: среди́ (ru) (sredí)
• Ukrainian: серед (sered)

Anagrams

• DTIMs, MSTID, Smidt