Mongst

Part of speech: preposition

Definitions

1. An archaic or poetic variant of among, meaning surrounded by or included in a group of people or things
2. A shortened old form of among, used to indicate being in the middle of, or part of, a collection
3. Poetic spelling of among, expressing position inside a crowd, a set, or a number of things

Etymology: "Mongst" is a contraction of "amongst," which itself is "among" with an added "-st." That extra ending is a survival of Old English "-es" plus "-t," a pattern seen in other adverbs such as "whilst" and "amidst." Old English "on gemong" meant "in a mingled crowd," from "gemong," "a mingling," built on "mengan," "to mix," which is also the source of "mingle." The "-st" ending was an adverbial genitive suffix, so "amongst" and "amidst" are essentially the same kind of formation as "whilst" from "while." Dictionaries generally treat the "-st" forms as variants of "among" used with the same meaning, while "mongst" is simply the clipped spelling that drops the unstressed opening vowel.