middled

1. 1
   adjectivein compounds

   Having a middle or midsection of a specified kind, as indicated by an accompanying descriptive word.

   The broad-middled amphora had been shaped for stability on a cellar floor.

   Wasps are slender-middled insects with a narrow waist between thorax and abdomen.

   Note

   An adjective that lives only at the end of a hyphenated compound, after the word that does the describing: trim-middled, heavy-middled, slender-middled. On its own it is not used, and the word itself is not graded with more or most. Its natural home is describing body shape. John M. Kays's Basic Animal Husbandry (1958) uses it to judge hogs, setting trim-middled animals against heavy-middled ones.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of middle.

   The batsman middled the delivery and sent it sailing over the ropes.

   He had middled his drive, and it rolled far down the fairway.

   Note

   A regular verb form: the silent -e of middle simply takes -d, and one spelling serves both the simple past (he middled it) and the perfect (he has middled it). Of the verb's meanings, only the batting one is current, striking the ball with the middle of the bat's face. Folding a rope in two and taking a middle view are both obsolete. Do not confuse it with the compound adjective in heavy-middled.

Showing meanings only. Show all 2