medio-, medi-

Intermediate in degree.

Surrounded nearly or completely by dry land. A reference to large bodies of water; such as, lakes or seas.

Whenever you hear the word mediterranean, do you think of that specific place and perhaps of the great cultures that have surrounded it? You should know that the word can also apply to any large body of water that is surrounded completely or almost completely by dry land. This usage goes back to the use in Late Latin of the Latin word mediterraneus, the source of our word, as part of the name Mediterraneum mare for the mostly landlocked Mediterranean Sea.

Keep in mind that Latin mediterraneus, which is derived from medius, "the middle of, the heart of," and terra, "land", in Classical Latin actually meant "remote from the coast, inland".

In Late Latin, in referring to the sea, mediterraneus probably originally meant "in the middle of the earth" rather than "surrounded by land", because to the Mediterranean cultures without knowledge of much of the earth, the Mediterranean Sea was in the center of the world. Our word mediterranean is first recorded in English, in 1594, as the name of the sea.

An inland sea surrounded by Europe, Asia, Asia Minor, the Near East, and Africa. It connects with the Atlantic Ocean through the Strait of Gibraltar; with the Black Sea through the Dardanelles, the Sea of Marmara, and the Bosporus; and with the Red Sea through the Suez Canal.

I. Something that is intermediate between two degrees, amounts, qualities, or classes; a middle state.
2. More generally; a middle quality, degree, or condition. Formerly, something or someone intermediate in nature, degree, or position.
3. An intermediate agency, instrument, or channel; a means; especially, a means or channel of communication or expression.
4. Any of the varieties of painting or drawing as determined by the material or technique used; hence, more widely any raw material or mode of expression used in an artistic or creative activity.
5. A channel of mass communication, as newspapers, radio, television, etc.; the reporters, journalists, etc., working for organizations engaged in such communication.
6. Any physical material (as tape, disk, paper, etc.) used for recording or reproducing data, images, or sound.
7. A pervading or enveloping substance; the substance in which an organism lives; especially, one in which microorganisms, cells, etc., are cultured.
8. In an extended use; one's environment, conditions of life, or usual social setting.
9. A person believed to be in contact with the spirits of the dead and to communicate between the living and the dead; hence: a clairvoyant.
10. Of meat; cooked to a degree between well done and rare; also, in medium done or medium rare.
11. Of wine, sherry, etc.; having a flavor midway between dry and sweet; more explicitly, as medium dry, medium sweet.

"Happy are they who have kept a middle course."

Mid-day, noon.

Pertaining to or characteristic of noonday.

1. In law, happening or appearing between two other things, especially assignments of property; intermediate or intervening.
2. Middle; intervening; such as, a mesne lord, that is, a lord who holds the land of a superior, but grants a part of it to another person, in which case he is a tenant to the superior, but lord or superior to the second grantee, and hence is called the mesne lord.

1. The surroundings, environment, or settings that someone lives in and is influenced by.
2. Surroundings; especially, of a social or cultural nature: "She appeared to have a snobbish milieu this morning."
3. Environment: "surroundings"; from French, "middle, medium, mean"; literally, "middle place", from mi, "middle" [from Latin medius] + lieu, "place".

1. A fore-and-aft sail set on the mizzenmast.
2. The third mast from the bow in a vessel having three or more masts; the after and shorter mast of a yawl, ketch, or dandy.

1. Either of two parts, not necessarily equal, into which something is or can be divided.
2. Either of two halves into which some Native South American and Aboriginal Australian societies are divided for ritual and marriage purposes.

Marriages are forbidden within the same moiety.

3. Etymology: from Old French meitiet, from Latin medietas "half", from medius, "middle".

1. Programs, software, and hardware capable of using a wide variety of media; such as, films, videos, and music as well as text and numbers.
2. Relating to or using two or more media, especially a combination apprehended by different senses; such as sight and hearing.

1. In back and toward the middle line.
2. Situated toward the middle of the posterior (back) surface.

Situated on the midline of a posterior (back) surface.