midden

See also: midden-

English

Etymology

From Middle English midding, myddyng, from Old Danish mykdyngja, (a compound of Old Norse myk, myki (“muck, manure”) and dyngja (“dung, dungpile”)), whence also Danish møgdynge and mødding, Norwegian mødding, dialectal Swedish mödding.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪdən/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪdən

Noun

midden (plural middens)

1. A dungheap.
2. A refuse heap usually near a dwelling.
   • 1952, Norman Lewis, Golden Earth:

     Untouched by the decaying middens in which they live, they emerge into the sunshine immaculate and serene. The Burmese must be the best-dressed people in the world.

   • 1979, V. S. Naipaul, A Bend in the River:

     Strange rubbish, not the tins and paper and boxes and other containers you would expect in a town, but a finer kind of waste […] that made the middens look like grey-black mounds of sifted earth.

3. (archaeology) An accumulation, deposit, or soil derived from occupation debris, rubbish, or other by-products of human activity, such as bone, shell, ash, or decayed organic materials; or a pile or mound of such materials, often prehistoric.
4. (zoology) A shelter made of vegetation and other materials by packrats.
5. (zoology) An accumulation of dried urine and fecal deposits made by hyraxes.

Derived terms

• midden-hill
• spiritual midden

Translations

dunghill — see dunghill

refuse heap

• Finnish: tunkio (fi)
• Galician: coañeira (gl) f
• German: Müllgrube (de) f, Müllhaufen (de) m
• Serbo-Croatian: smetlište (sh)
• Spanish: basural m
• Ukrainian: купа сміття f (kupa smittja)

archeology: prehistoric pile of bones and shells

• Danish: køkkenmødding c
• Finnish: tunkio (fi)
• Icelandic: eldhúshaugur m
• Irish: carnán bruscair m
• Japanese: 貝塚 (kaidzuka)
• Korean: 패총 (ko) (paechong)
• Portuguese: cascal m
• Spanish: conchero (es) m

Anagrams

• minded

Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch midden, from Old Dutch *middi, from Proto-West Germanic *midi, from Proto-Germanic *midjaz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *medʰyo-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪdə(n)/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: mid‧den
• Rhymes: -ɪdən

Noun

midden n (plural middens)

1. middle, centre

   in het midden van het dorp staat de kerk ― in the middle of the village stands the church

Adverb

midden

1. in the middle

Derived terms

• in het midden laten
• in het midden van
• middenst

Related terms

• middel

Descendants

• → Aukan: mindii
• → Saramaccan: míndi

Luxembourgish

Adjective

midden

1. inflection of midd:
   1. strong/weak nominative/accusative masculine singular
   2. weak dative masculine/neuter singular
   3. strong/weak dative plural

West Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian midde, from Proto-West Germanic *midi.

Noun

midden c or n (no plural)

1. middle (part between beginning and end)

Further reading

• “midden (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011