maidan

From Urdu میدان‎ (maidān), and its source, Persian میدان‎ (meydân, “town-square or central place of gathering”), from Arabic مَيْدَان‎ (maydān), itself an Iranian borrowing (see the Arabic entry for more), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos. Compare Avestan 𐬨𐬀𐬌𐬜𐬌𐬌𐬀‎ (maiδya), Sanskrit मध्य (madhya), Latin medius.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /mʌɪˈdɑːn/, /ˈmʌɪdɑːn/
• (US) IPA^(key): /maɪˈdɑn/

maidan (plural maidans)

1. (chiefly South Asia) A marketplace or other open space in or by a city or town; an esplanade. [from 16th c.]
   • 1924, EM Forster, A Passage to India, Penguin 2005, p. 5:

     Inland, the prospect alters. There is an oval maidan, and a long sallow hospital.

   • 1957, Lawrence Durrell, Justine, Faber, page 84:

     Below on the amorphous brown-violet meidan by the railway station […].

   • M. Crawford

     a gallop on the green maidan

• meidan

From Майда́н Незале́жності (Majdán Nezaléžnosti, “Independence Square”) in Kiev, from Ukrainian майда́н (majdán, “square”), from Ottoman Turkish میدان‎ (meydân), from the same Persian source as above.

• Maydan

Maidan (plural Maidans or maidans)

1. Independence Square, the main city square in Kiev, Ukraine. [from 1993]
2. The Orange Revolution protests that took place in Kiev’s Maidan in 2004–05; the Euromaidan protests of 2013–14; the protest movement associated with the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution.

• anti-maidan, antiMaidan
• AutoMaidan
• Euromaidan, EuroMaidan

For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:maidan.

• Aminda, Damian, aidman

Borrowed from Turkish meydan (“square, open space”).

maidan n (plural maidane)

1. open space

• maidanez