mid-century
UK[ˌmɪd ˈsen.tʃər.i]US[ˌmɪd ˈsen.tʃər.i]
adj
Relating to or characteristic of the middle of the 20th century, especially the period around the 1950s
n
The middle point of a century
Morpheme Breakdown
mid
century
mid
middle
century
period of 100 years
Etymology
The compound word 'mid-century' is a transparent English formation, directly combining two native and borrowed elements to denote a temporal midpoint. The first element, 'mid', is a robust Germanic root from Old English, preserving its core meaning of "middle" across millennia. The second element, 'century', entered English via French from Latin centuria, which itself derives from the Proto-Indo-European root ḱm̥tóm (hundred), a term of great antiquity. The logic of the word is purely compositional: it literally means "the middle of a hundred-year period," a sense which was later culturally specialized to refer specifically to the design and ethos of the 1950s.
Analysis
Structure: mid (middle) + century (period of 100 years)
- mid: From Old English midd- (middle, midst). A combining form indicating the central part of something.
- century: From Latin centuria (a group of one hundred, a century), from centum (hundred). Denotes a period of one hundred years.
Examples
The house featured classic mid-century modern furniture.
The political landscape changed dramatically by the mid-century.
Her research focuses on European art from the mid-century.