midst
/mɪdst/noun, preposition
midst is spelled M-I-D-S-T: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 7.8 times per million words in written English, the 8,417th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, midst means “A place in the middle of something; may be used of a literal or metaphorical location” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of midst is midsts.
How many letters and syllables are in midst?
| Letters | 5: M-I-D-S-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 7.8 times per million words; the 8,417th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
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).
How common is midst?
Midst appears 7.8 times per million words in written English, the 8,417th 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 midst?
- /mɪdst/
- [mɪdst]
- [mɪtst]
Midst has one syllable (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-midst.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of midst
- midsts plural
- midest
- middest
- middis
- middst
- myddest
- mydest
- myddis
- myddst
- mydst
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does midst mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A place in the middle of something; may be used of a literal or metaphorical location.
preposition
- 1
rareAmong, in the middle of; amidst.
Mildred comes home from work early only to discover her husband, Robert, midst of a lewd affair with their neighbor, Gladys.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Midst in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
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 midst come from?
From Middle English middes, midst, myddest (“middle”), from Old English midde, reshaped in Middle English phrases like in middes (“in the middle”) by analogy with adverbs in -(e)s; also compare Old English on middan, tōmiddes. Forms in -(e)st are probably due to influence of superlatives.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).