Midst Meaning
/mɪdst/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA place in the middle of something; may be used of a literal or metaphorical location.
prepAmong, in the middle of; amidst.
Sentence Examples
Your gift was like discovery of an oasis in the midst of a desert.
Suddenly Nancy screamed in the midst of silence.
Such beauty was unexpected in the midst of the city.
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms:
Antonyms:
None
CEFR Practice Quiz
She stood in the ____ of the busy square, with people all around her.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
In the ____ of the busy crowd, the young child accidentally lost sight of his parents but was soon reunited with them safely.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English middes, midst, myddest (“middle”), from Old English midde, reshaped in Middle English phrases like in middes (“in the middle”) by analogy with adverbs in -(e)s; also compare Old English on middan, tōmiddes. Forms in -(e)st are probably due to influence of superlatives.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
"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."
— 1995, Mary Ellen Pitts, Toward a Dialogue of Understandings: Loren Eiseley and the Critique of Science, page 225:
"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.""
— 2002, Nathan W. Schlueter, 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:
"She puts the period often from his place ; And 'midst the sentence so her accent breaks"
— 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
She stood in the ____ of the busy square, with people all around her.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
In the ____ of the busy crowd, the young child accidentally lost sight of his parents but was soon reunited with them safely.