Middle-english definition

The English language as written and spoken between c. 1100 and c. 1500, preceded by Old English and followed by Early Modern English: it is characterized by the loss of grammatical gender and most of the inflectional endings of Old English, by the emergence of a syntax based on word order and function words, by the simplification of the pronominal system, and by extensive vocabulary borrowings from French, Latin, and Low German.
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The English language from about 1100 to 1500.
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The ancestor language of Modern English, spoken in England and parts of Scotland (where it became Lowland Scots) from about 1100 AD to 1500 AD. It developed from Anglo-Saxon, also called Old English, with heavy influence from French and Latin after the Norman invasion.
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Middle-english Sentence Examples

  • Besides the palace of the maharaja, the town contains a middle English school and a female dispensary, entirely supported out of the estate.

  • In the middle of words when t precedes a palatal sound like i (y) which is not syllabic, it coalesces with it into the sound of sh as in position, nation, &c. The change to a sibilant in these cases took place in late Latin, but in Middle English the i following the t was still pronounced as a separate syllable.

  • Nude is of Latin origin, entering the language in late Middle English.

  • The word "kennel," a gutter, a drain in a street or road, is a corruption of the Middle English canel, cannel, in modern English "channel," from Latin canalis, canal.

  • Maundy Thursday is sometimes known as Sheer or Chare Thursday, either in allusion, it is thought, to the "shearing" of heads and beards in preparation for Easter, or more probably in the word's Middle English sense of "pure," in allusion to the ablutions of the day.

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