midst
noun
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L24354 on Wikidata ↗preposition
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L333899 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /mɪdst/ / [mɪdst] / [mɪtst]
noun
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.
- A place in the middle of something; may be used of a literal or metaphorical location.
“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.”
“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.”
prep
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.
- Among, in the middle of; amidst.
“Mildred comes home from work early only to discover her husband, Robert, midst of a lewd affair with their neighbor, Gladys.”
“She puts the period often from his place ; And 'midst the sentence so her accent breaks”