Middle Ages

Also found in: Thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Related to Middle Ages: Dark Ages

Middle Ages

pl.n.

The period in European history between antiquity and the Renaissance, often dated from ad 476 to 1453.

Middle Ages

1. (Historical Terms) (broadly) the period from the end of classical antiquity (or the deposition of the last W Roman emperor in 476 ad) to the Italian Renaissance (or the fall of Constantinople in 1453)

2. (Historical Terms) (narrowly) the period from about 1000 ad to the 15th century. Compare Dark Ages

Mid′dle Ag′es

the time in European history between classical antiquity and the Renaissance, from the late 5th century to about 1350: sometimes restricted to the period after 1100 and sometimes extended to 1450 or 1500.

[1715–25; translation of New Latin Medium Aevum]

Middle Ages

– middle age

1. 'Middle Ages'

In European history, the Middle Ages were the period between approximately 1000 AD and 1400 AD.

This practice was common throughout the Middle Ages.

2. 'middle age'

Middle age is the period in a person's life when they are no longer young but are not yet old.

...the onset of middle age.

Men tend to put on weight in middle age.

3. 'middle-aged'

When someone has reached this period of their life, you can say that they are middle-aged.

The boss was a middle-aged woman.

...middle-aged married businessmen.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Switch to new thesaurus

Noun

Middle Ages - the period of history between classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance

Dark Ages

bloodletting - formerly used as a treatment to reduce excess blood (one of the four humors of medieval medicine)

cannon - (Middle Ages) a cylindrical piece of armor plate to protect the arm

chain armor, chain armour, chain mail, ring armor, ring armour, ring mail, mail - (Middle Ages) flexible armor made of interlinked metal rings

habergeon - (Middle Ages) a light sleeveless coat of chain mail worn under the hauberk

miniature, illumination - painting or drawing included in a book (especially in illuminated medieval manuscripts)

pavis, pavise - (Middle Ages) a large heavy oblong shield protecting the whole body; originally carried but sometimes set up in permanent position

humour, humor - (Middle Ages) one of the four fluids in the body whose balance was believed to determine your emotional and physical state; "the humors are blood and phlegm and yellow and black bile"

Cockaigne - (Middle Ages) an imaginary land of luxury and idleness

courtly love - (Middle Ages) a highly conventionalized code of conduct for lovers

knight errantry - (Middle Ages) the code of conduct observed by a knight errant who is wandering in search of deeds of chivalry

trivium - (Middle Ages) an introductory curriculum at a medieval university involving grammar and logic and rhetoric; considered to be a triple way to eloquence

quadrivium - (Middle Ages) a higher division of the curriculum in a medieval university involving arithmetic and music and geometry and astronomy

Oberson - (Middle Ages) the king of the fairies and husband of Titania in medieval folklore

Titania - (Middle Ages) the queen of the fairies in medieval folklore

esquire - (Middle Ages) an attendant and shield bearer to a knight; a candidate for knighthood

palsgrave, palatine - (Middle Ages) the lord of a palatinate who exercised sovereign powers over his lands

Tristan, Tristram - (Middle Ages) the nephew of the king of Cornwall who (according to legend) fell in love with his uncle's bride (Iseult) after they mistakenly drank a love potion that left them eternally in love with each other

Iseult, Isolde - (Middle Ages) the bride of the king of Cornwall who (according to legend) fell in love with the king's nephew (Tristan) after they mistakenly drank a love potion that left them eternally in love with each other

helot, serf, villein - (Middle Ages) a person who is bound to the land and owned by the feudal lord

history - the aggregate of past events; "a critical time in the school's history"

Translations

الْعُصُورُ الْوُسْطَىالقُرون الوُسْطى

středověk

middelalder

keskiaika

srednji vijek

középkorközépkor: a középkor

miîaldir

Medioevo

中世

중년

stredovek

srednji vek

medeltidmedeltiden

ยุคกลาง

Orta Çağ

thời Trung cổ

中世纪

Middle Ages

npl the Middle Ages → il Medioevo

middle

(ˈmidl) noun

1. the central point or part. the middle of a circle.

2. the central area of the body; the waist. You're getting rather fat round your middle.

adjective

equally distant from both ends. the middle seat in a row.

ˈmiddling adjective

average. He's neither tall nor short, but of middling height.

middle age

the years between youth and old age. She is well into middle age.

ˌmiddle-ˈaged adjective

Middle Ages (with the)

the time between the end of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance.

Middle East (with the)

Egypt and the countries of Asia west of Pakistan.

ˈmiddleman (-mӕn) noun

a dealer who buys goods from the person who makes or grows them, and sells them to shopkeepers or to the public; a wholesaler. You can save money by buying direct from the factory and cutting out the middleman.

be in the middle of (doing) something

to be busily occupied doing something. Please excuse my appearance. I was in the middle of washing my hair.

Middle Ages

→ الْعُصُورُ الْوُسْطَى středověk middelalder Mittelalter Μεσαίωνας Edad Media keskiaika Moyen-Âge srednji vijek Medioevo 中世 중년 middeleeuwen middelalderen Średniowiecze Idade Média Средневековье medeltiden ยุคกลาง Orta Çağ thời Trung cổ 中世纪

References in classic literature ?

These Greek capitals, black with age, and quite deeply graven in the stone, with I know not what signs peculiar to Gothic caligraphy imprinted upon their forms and upon their attitudes, as though with the purpose of revealing that it had been a hand of the Middle Ages which had inscribed them there, and especially the fatal and melancholy meaning contained in them, struck the author deeply.

For it is thus that people have been in the habit of proceeding with the marvellous churches of the Middle Ages for the last two hundred years.

View in context

In the Middle Ages, a couple of young dukes, brothers, took opposite sides in one of the wars, the one fighting for the Emperor, the other against him.

View in context

In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations.

From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns.

View in context

One of the most striking general facts in the later Middle Ages is the uniformity of life in many of its aspects throughout all Western Europe.

We of the twentieth century should not allow ourselves to think vaguely of the Middle Ages as a benighted or shadowy period when life and the people who constituted it had scarcely anything in common with ourselves.

View in context

The crowds of men who merely spoke the Greek and Latin tongues in the Middle Ages were not entitled by the accident of birth to read the works of genius written in those languages; for these were not written in that Greek or Latin which they knew, but in the select language of literature.

The Skip of the Tip-Toe-Hop, a Romance of the Middle Ages, by the celebrated author of `Tittle-Tol-Tan,' to appear in monthly parts; a great rush; don't all come together.

View in context

Muzzle retired; and a pale, sharp-nosed, half-fed, shabbily- clad clerk, of middle age, entered the room.

View in context

And how inexpressibly sad it was to hear him prattling on of the ideal life, of socialism, of Walt Whitman and what not,--all the dear old quackeries,--while I was already settling down comfortably to a conservative middle age.

View in context

The dashing young frigate captain, the man who in middle age was nothing loth to give chase single-handed in his seventy-four to a whole fleet, the man of enterprise and consummate judgment, the old Admiral of the Fleet, the good and trusted servant of his country under two kings and a queen, had felt correctly Nelson's influence, and expressed himself with precision out of the fulness of his seaman's heart.