Middles

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Central segments, primary areas, or intermediary sections within anything from space to time
2. The parts located in the center or intermediate area of an object, space, or concept
3. Positions or segments found in the middle area, neither at the beginning nor the end

Etymology: The plural "middles" is the ordinary plural of "middle," so the interesting history lies in the singular. "Middle" descends from Old English "middel," meaning "middle, centre, waist," and that Old English word was itself a diminutive, a little form built on the Proto-Germanic root "*midjō," meaning "middle, midst." The root goes back further still to a Proto-Indo-European adjective meaning "between" or "in the middle." The word's journey through English is a steady narrowing of its sense. Its original reach covered physical centres and even the waist of the body, and it gradually extended into the sense of a place or part lying between two ends, which is where the plural's meaning of intermediary sections comes from. Over time that spatial sense expanded to cover time as well, so a period can have a middle just as an object can. Across Germanic languages, the same root produced a striking sibling: German "Mittel" and Dutch "middel" mean "means" or "remedy," not just a midpoint. That sense connects a central position to a method or intermediary route to an end.

Synonyms: centers, interiors, middles, halves, cores

Antonyms: edges, outsides, boundaries, extremes, peripheries