An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/mitte

by Friedrich Kluge

mitte, adj., obsolete as an independent word, but preserved in derivatives; MidHG. mitte, OHG. mitti, adj., ‘medius’; comp. AS. midd, preserved in E. only in midriff, AS. mid-hrif (hrif, ‘body,’ Lat. corpus), E. midnight, mid-Lent, midland, midwinter, &c., and in the derivatives midst, middle, &c.; Goth. midjis, ‘medius.’ It is a common Teut. and Aryan adj., pre-historic médhyo-s; comp. Sans. mádhyas, Gr. μέσος for *μέϑjος, Lat. medius, OSlov. mežda, f. (from medja), ‘middle.’ — Mittag, ‘mid-day,’ Mittfasten, ‘mid-Lent,’ Mittwoch, ‘Wednesday’; Mitternacht, ‘midnight,’ is prop. a dat. sing., originating in MidHG. ze mitter naht, OHG. 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, prop. dat. plur., originated in MidHG. ze Baden, ‘at the baths,’ Sachsen, dat. plur., MidHG. ze Sahsen, ‘in Saxony,’ lit. ‘among the Saxons’). In MidHG., however, mitnaht was also used for OHG. mittinaht. —