midst

1. 1
   nounliteraryuncountable

   The middle part of something, whether a real place or a situation one is surrounded by.

   Like the calm eye at the center of a storm, surrounded on every side.

   Negotiations collapsed in the midst of mounting political pressure.

   A quiet garden sat in the midst of the busy city.

   Similarmiddle, heart, center, thick

   Note

   A word that picked up a stray t: Old English midde became Middle English middes in phrases like in middes, "in the middle," on the pattern of adverbs ending in -s, and the -st probably came from the pull of superlatives. Today it lives mostly in the frame in the midst of, which moves easily from place to circumstance, as in Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity."

2. 2
   prepositionrare

   Surrounded by; in the middle of; among.

   Like a small boat on the open sea, water on every side.

   Midst the falling snow, the travelers pressed onward toward the pass.

   She puts the period often from his place ; And 'midst the sentence so her accent breaks

   1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto)

   Similaramid, among

   Note

   Here the noun has shed its frame, so midst stands alone where in the midst of would be expected. Shakespeare writes it 'midst in Lucrece (1594), and the apostrophe marks it as a clipped amidst. The usage is rare and belongs to verse and elevated prose. In ordinary writing, among or in the middle of reads more naturally, and a bare midst of without in the sounds like a slip rather than a choice.

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