英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

middle passage (n.)[middle passage 词源字典]: 1788, in reference to the trans-Atlantic slave trade.[middle passage etymology, middle passage origin, 英语词源]
middlebrow: 1911 (adj.), 1912 (n.), from middle + brow (compare highbrow, lowbrow).
[T]here is an alarmingly wide chasm, I might almost say a vacuum, between the high-brow, who considers reading either as a trade or as a form of intellectual wrestling, and the low-brow, who is merely seeking for gross thrills. It is to be hoped that culture will soon be democratized through some less conventional system of education, giving rise to a new type that might be called the middle-brow, who will consider books as a source of intellectual enjoyment. ["The Nation," Jan, 25, 1912]
middleman (n.): in the trading sense, 1795, from middle + man. From mid-15c. as the name of some type of workman in wire-making. From 1741 as "one who takes a middle course."
middlemost (adj.): early 14c., "middle; the middle one of three," from middle + -most.
Middlesex: literally "(land of the) Middle Saxons" (those between Essex and Wessex); originally a much larger region. See middle + Saxon.
Middletown: "typical U.S. middle class community," 1929. The U.S. Geological Survey lists 40 towns by that name, not counting variant spellings.
middleweight (n.): also middle weight, 1842, from middle + weight.
middling (adj.): 1540s, from Scottish mydlyn (mid-15c.), from middle + suffix -ing. Used to designate the second of three grades of goods. As an adverb by 1719.
middy (n.): colloquial abbreviation of midshipman, by 1818. As "loose, long type of women's blouse," 1911, from resemblance to shirts worn by midshipmen.
Midgard: in Germanic cosmology, "world inhabited by men (opposed to Asgard, the abode of the gods), 1882, from Old Norse miðgarðr, from mið "mid" (see mid) + Proto-Germanic *gardoz "enclosure, tract" (see yard (n.1)). The Old English cognate was middangeard, which later was folk-etymologized as middle earth (late 13c.).
midge (n.): Old English mygg, mycg "gnat," from Proto-Germanic *mugjon (cognates: Swedish mygga, Old Saxon muggia, Middle Dutch mugghe, Dutch mug, Old High German mucka, German Mücke "midge, gnat"). No certain cognates beyond Germanic, unless doubtful Armenian mun "gnat" and Albanian mize "gnat" are counted. But Watkins, Klein and others suggest an imitative root used for various humming insects and a relationship to Latin musca (see mosquito). Meaning "diminutive person" is from 1796.
midget (n.): as a type of tiny biting insect, 1839, American English, from midge, perhaps with diminutive suffix -et.
Dr. Webster is in error in saying the word "midge" is "not in use" at the present day. In the neighboring Green mountain districts, one or more most annoying species of Simulium that there abound, are daily designated in common conversation as the midges, or, as the name is often corrupted, the midgets. From Dr. Harris' treatise it appears that the same name is in popular use for the same insects in Maine. The term is limited in this country, we believe, exclusively to those minute insects, smaller than the musketoe, which suck the blood of other animals. ["Transactions of the New-York State Agricultural Society," vol. VI, Albany, 1847]
Transferred sense of "very small person" is attested by 1854. It is also noted mid-19c. as a pet form of Margaret.
Midi: "southern France," 1883, from French midi "south," literally "midday" (12c.), from mi "middle" (from Latin medius "middle;" see medial (adj.)) + di "day" (from Latin dies; see diurnal). Also compare meridian.
MIDI: 1983, acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface.
midland (adj.): early 15c., mydlonde; mid + land (n.). As a noun from 1550s, first of the Midlands of England.
midlife (n.): also mid-life, 1837, from mid + life. Midlife crisis attested from 1965.
midmost (adj.): Old English midmest; see mid + -most.
midnight (n.): Old English mid-niht, or middre niht (with dative). See mid + night. Midnight oil symbolizing "late night work" is attested from 1630s.
midpoint (n.): late 14c., from mid + point (n.).
midriff (n.): Old English midhrif, from mid "mid" (see mid) + hrif "belly," from Proto-Germanic *hrefiz- (cognates: Old High German href, Old Frisian hrif "belly"), from PIE *kwrep- "body, form, appearance" (see corporeal). More or less obsolete after 18c. except in phrase to tickle (one's) midriff "to cause laughter," the word revived 1941 in fashion usage for "portion of a woman's garment that covers the belly," as a euphemistic avoidance of belly; sense inverted and extended 1970 to a belly-baring style of women's top.