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.
Meanings
(rare) Among, in the middle of; amidst.
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:
Mildred comes home from work early only to discover her husband, Robert, midst of a lewd affair with their neighbor, Gladys.
ar فِي مُنْتَصَف (in the middle of) · bg сред (in the middle of) · ru среди́ (in the middle of) · de inmitten (in the middle of) · ar وَسْطَ (in the middle of) · fi keskellä (in the middle of) · uk серед (in the middle of) · arz في نص (in the middle of)
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.
Meanings
(literary, often) A place in the middle of something; may be used of a literal or metaphorical location.
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:
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:
fr milieu (place in the middle of something) · fi ydin (place in the middle of something) · ru середина (place in the middle of something) · fi keskus (place in the middle of something) · egy q-A-b-F46:Y1 (place in the middle of something) · ota مركز (place in the middle of something) · scn menzu (place in the middle of something) · de Mitte (place in the middle of something) · fr centre (place in the middle of something) · fi sisin (place in the middle of something) · uk сере́дина (place in the middle of something) · fi keskusta (place in the middle of something) · scn centru (place in the middle of something) · got 𐌼𐌹𐌳𐌿𐌼𐌰 (place in the middle of something) · bg среда (place in the middle of something) · hy մեջտեղ (place in the middle of something) · de Mitten (place in the middle of something)