English Explanatory Dictionary

Middle Earth

English dictionary entry

Meanings

name
  1. The Earth.
  2. synonym for Midgard, the world of traditional Germanic cosmology, conceived as a realm between heaven (Asgard) and hell (Niflheim).
  3. Alternative form of Middle-earth: the setting of the Lord of the Rings series.
name
  1. Alternative letter-case form of Middle Earth.

Word forms

Middle Earth middle-earth

Etymology

From Middle English myddelerthe, middelerthe; an alteration of earlier middelerd; in turn an alteration of earlier middenerd; from Old English middaneard (“Middle Earth”), variant of middanġeard (“Earth, the world”, literally “the middle yard, enclosure, or realm”) mis- or reinterpreting its meaning, from Proto-Germanic *midjagardaz, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“middle”) and *gʰórdʰos (“enclosure”). Cognate with Norwegian & English Midgard (q.v.) and Danish, Norwegian, & Swedish Midgård.

Related words

Midgard
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on M Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary