Amidst

How to spell amidst

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce amidst

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does amidst mean?

1. prepositionIn the middle of, or surrounded by, something.

Amidst in a sentence

• The small village sat amidst rolling fields and quiet hills.

• She stayed calm amidst the chaos of the busy newsroom.

Where does amidst come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word descends from the Old English phrase on middan, literally meaning 'in the middle', where middan was the dative form of midd, 'mid' or 'middle'. In Middle English it became amiddes, picking up the -s ending that Old English used to form adverbs (the same genitive -s that survives in words like 'always' and 'towards'). During the sixteenth century an extra t crept onto the end, a so-called excrescent consonant that English speakers also tacked onto 'against', 'amongst' and 'whilst' simply because the cluster felt natural to pronounce. That stray t is the heart of the spelling trap: amidst is just 'amid' with this historical -st bolted on, and the two forms remain interchangeable in meaning. The root mid is one of the oldest layers of English, related to Latin medius and Greek mesos, both also meaning 'middle'.

How the word is built

• a- (in, on; from Old English on)
• mid (middle)
• -st (excrescent t added to the genitive -s ending)