middle: [OE] Middle traces its ancestry back to Indo-European *medhjo-, which also produced Latin medius ‘middle’ (source of English mediate, medium, etc) and Greek mésos ‘middle’ (source of the English prefix meso-). Its prehistoric Germanic descendant was *mithja-, which has given English the adjective mid [OE] and the derived noun midst [14]. From *mithjawas formed in West Germanic the adjective *middila, which has given modern German mittel, Dutch middel, and English middle. => mediate, medium
middle (adj.)
Old English middel, from West Germanic *middila (cognates: Old Frisian middel, Old Saxon middil, Middle Low German, Dutch middel, Old High German mittil, German mittel), from Proto-Germanic *medjaz (see mid). Middle name attested from 1815; as "one's outstanding characteristic," colloquial, from 1911, American English.
According to Mr. H.A. Hamilton, in his "Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth," the practice of giving children two Christian names was unknown in England before the period of the Stuarts, was rarely adopted down to the time of the Revolution, and never became common until after the Hanoverian family was seated on the throne. "In looking through so many volumes of county records," he says, "I have, of course, seen many thousands and tens of thousands of proper names, belonging to men of all ranks and degrees,--to noblemen, justices, jurymen, witnesses, sureties, innkeepers, hawkers, paupers, vagrants, criminals, and others,--and in no single instance, down to the end of the reign of Anne, have I noticed any person bearing more than one Christian name ...." [Walsh]
Middle school attested from 1838, originally "middle-class school, school for middle-class children;" the sense in reference to a school for grades between elementary and high school is from 1960. Middle management is 1957. Middle-of-the-road in the figurative sense is attested from 1894; edges of a dirt road can be washed out and thus less safe. Middle finger so called from c. 1000.
middle (n.)
Old English middel, from middle (adj.).
双语例句
1. Middle East peace talks in Washington showed signs of progress yesterday.
昨天在华盛顿举行的中东和谈有了取得进展的迹象。
来自柯林斯例句
2. Babearth regarded the middle classes as the betrayers of the Revolution.
巴博施把中产阶级看作是革命的叛徒。
来自柯林斯例句
3. She was born in the middle of a rain storm.
她出生在一场暴风雨中。
来自柯林斯例句
4. The hotel is set plumb in the middle of the high street.
宾馆正好坐落在商街的中段。
来自柯林斯例句
5. He stares detachedly into the middle distance, towards nothing in particular.
