An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/mitte

by Friedrich Kluge

mitte, adjective, obsolete as an independent word, but preserved in derivatives; Middle High German mitte, Old High German mitti, adjective, ‘medius’; compare Anglo-Saxon midd, preserved in English only in midriff, Anglo-Saxon mid-hrif (hrif, ‘body,’ Latin corpus), English midnight, mid-Lent, midland, midwinter, &c., and in the derivatives midst, middle, &c.; Gothic midjis, ‘medius.’ It is a common Teutonic and Aryan adjective, pre-historic médhyo-s; compare Sanscrit mádhyas, Greek μέσος for *μέϑjος, Latin medius, Old Slovenian mežda, feminine (from medja), ‘middle.’ — Mittag, ‘mid-day,’ Mittfasten, ‘mid-Lent,’ Mittwoch, ‘Wednesday’; Mitternacht, ‘midnight,’ is properly a dative singular, originating in Middle High German ze mitter naht, Old High German zi mitteru naht, its frequent locative use (in this case to denote time when) becoming predominant as it did in names of places (e.g. Baden, properly dative plural, originated in Middle High German ze Baden, ‘at the baths,’ Sachsen, dative plural, Middle High German ze Sahsen, ‘in Saxony,’ literally ‘among the Saxons’). In Middle High German, however, mitnaht was also used for Old High German mittinaht. —