midden

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.

• Rhymes: -ɪdən

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) A prehistoric pile of bones and shells.

• minded

From a derivative of Proto-Germanic *midjaz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *medʰyo-.

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midden

1. in the middle

• in het midden van
• middenst

midden

1. inflected form of midd

midden c or n (no plural)

1. middle (part between beginning and end)

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