midst

See also: 'midst

English

Alternative forms

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

Etymology

From Middle English in middes (“in the middle”).

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.
   • 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Affair at the Novelty Theatre‎^[1]:

     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, Pitts, Mary Ellen, 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, Schlueter, Nathan W., 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) (meǰteł)
• Bulgarian: среда (bg) f (sreda)
• Egyptian: (qꜣb)
• Finnish: keskus (fi), keskusta (fi), sisin (fi), ydin (fi)
• French: centre (fr), milieu (fr)

• Gothic: 𐌼𐌹𐌳𐌿𐌼𐌰 f (miduma)
• Spanish: centro (es)
• Ukrainian: середина (uk) f (seredyna)

Preposition

midst

1. (rare) Among, in the middle of; amid.
   • 1594, William Shakespeare, Lvcrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], OCLC 236076664:

     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)

• Russian: среди́ (ru) (sredí)
• Ukrainian: серед (sered)

Anagrams

• DTIMs, MSTID, Smidt