Amongst

Part of speech: preposition

Pronunciation: /əˈmʌŋst/

Definitions

1. In the middle of or surrounded by a group of people or things
2. In the proximity of a group or collection of people or objects, indicating a shared social or spatial relationship
3. In the midst of a collective of individuals or items, suggesting a connection or interaction within that group

Etymology: Amongst is simply among with an extra "t" tacked on the end, and that "t" has a more tangled history than the word itself. The older form was "amongs", which was already "among" plus an "s" carried over from the Old English genitive case, a leftover of the way old possessive endings attached to words. Speakers then added a "t" to that, a sound that often creeps onto the ends of words for ease of pronunciation, a process linguists call an excrescent consonant. The same thing happened to "whilst" and "amidst," which shows the pattern is common rather than unique to this word. The base word, "among," goes back to Old English "ongemang," built from "on," meaning "in," and "gemang," meaning a crowd, mixing, or assemblage. So at its root, being among things meant being in the middle of a mingled crowd. The "-st" ending is the part readers most often find odd, and it is a sign that the preposition has been worn down and reshaped over many centuries rather than stuck in an older form.

Synonyms: among, between

Antonyms: apart, outside