Definition of middle

What does the word middle mean?

• part of speech: verb transitive

  (Footb.) return (ball or abs.) from wing to mid-field in front of goal; (techn.) place in the middle; (Naut.) fold in the middle.

• part of speech: noun

  m. article, brief essay of literary kind published in weekly or other journal& often placed between the political articles& the book-reviews; the M. Kingdom, China (f. Chin. phr. orig. applied to Honan as central& sovereign State); m. life, the m. part of life, m. age; the m. of next week (knock or send one into t. m. o. n. w., knock him senseless, esp. as vague threat).

• part of speech: adjective

  (not pred.; rare sup. middlemost) & n. (Of member of group) so placed as to have same number of members on each side; equidistant from extremities; intermediate in rank, quality, &c.; m. course, way, compromise between two extremes; (Gram.) intermediate voice of Greek vbs, between active& passive, expressing reflexive action or intransitive conditions; M. ENGLISH; m. age, between youth& old age; m.-aged, of such age; the M. Ages (about 1000-1400); m. class, class of society between upper& lower (often attrib., m. class); m. (second) finger; in the m. of, while (doing), during (process); (Log.) m. (term), term common to both premisses, principle of excluded m. (that anything must be included either under a given term or under its negative); middleman, any of the traders through whose hands commodity passes from producer to consumer; (n.) m. point or part (of), waist. [old English]