Midwestern

How to spell midwestern

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce midwestern

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does midwestern mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to or characteristic of the Midwest, the central interior region of the United States.

Midwestern in a sentence

• She grew up in a small midwestern town surrounded by cornfields.

• The company opened a distribution hub to serve midwestern markets.

Where does midwestern come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a compound built entirely from native English material. The element 'mid' descends from Old English 'midd', meaning 'middle' or 'central', a word with deep Germanic roots shared with German 'Mitte'. 'West' likewise comes from Old English 'west', the name for the direction where the sun sets, and the suffix '-ern' is the same old directional ending seen in 'eastern', 'northern', and 'southern'. The combined term arose in American usage during the nineteenth century to describe the central interior states of the United States, the region known as the Midwest, and the lowercase adjective followed naturally from the place name. The spelling is unusual mainly because it stacks 'mid', 'west', and '-ern' into one solid word with no hyphen, so writers must remember it is closed rather than written as 'mid-western'.

How the word is built

• mid- (middle)
• west (the western direction)
• -ern (adjective suffix forming directional/regional adjectives)