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PlainSpell

middle

UK /ˈmɪdl̩/noun, adjective, verb

middle is spelled M-I-D-D-L-E. The wrong spelling people search most is middel: about 60 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 55 of all searches for the word. Middle is a noun meaning “A centre, midpoint”. The plural of middle is middles.

How many letters and syllables are in middle?

Letters6: M-I-D-D-L-E
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing151 times per million words; the 679th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched2; the most searched, middel, about 60 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).

How do you spell middle?

Middle is spelled M-I-D-D-L-E. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 28 of the searches for middle in either form.

middlethe right spelling3,220 searches a month
middell and e swapped60 searches a month
midlea missing d60 searches a month

Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

How common is middle?

Middle appears 151 times per million words in written English, the 679th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce middle?

  • UK /ˈmɪdl̩/
  • UK [ˈmɪ.dəɫ]
  • UK [ˈmɪ.dʊ]

Middle has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-middle.ogg, En-au-middle.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of middle

  • middles plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • myddle
  • middlemost superlative
  • middlest superlative
  • middling participle, present
  • middled participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does middle mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A centre, midpoint.

    The middle of a circle is the point which has the same distance to every point of circle.

  2. 2

    The part between the beginning and the end.

    I woke up in the middle of the night.

  3. 3

    The middle stump.

  4. 4

    The central part of a human body; the waist.

  5. 5

    The middle voice.

  6. 6

    the center of the political spectrum.

    As part of his successful re-election strategy, Clinton began governing from the middle.

  7. 7

    An essay on social or literary issues in a newspaper or magazine, originally placed between the leading articles and the reviews.

adjective

  1. 1

    Located in the middle; in between.

    the middle point

  2. 2

    Central.

  3. 3

    Pertaining to the middle voice.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo take a middle view of.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo double (a rope) into two equal portions; to fold in the middle.

  3. 3

    To strike (the ball) with the middle portion of the face of the bat.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Middle in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchmilieu (centre, midpoint), moyen (located in the middle; in between), central (central)
GermanMittelpunkt (centre, midpoint), Mittel-, mittlere (located in the middle; in between), mittig (central), Mitte (part between beginning and end)
Portuguesemeio, centro (centre, midpoint), médio (located in the middle; in between), central (central), metade (part between beginning and end), cintura (central part of human body)
Spanishmedio, centro (centre, midpoint), central (central), cintura (central part of human body)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does middle come from?

From Middle English myddel, middel, from Old English middel (“middle, centre, waist”), from Proto-Germanic *midlą, *midilą, *medalą (“middle”), a diminutive of Proto-Germanic *midjō (“middle, midst”) (compare *midjaz (“mid, middle”, adjective)), from Proto-Indo-European *médʰyos (“between, in the middle, middle”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after middle