Etymology

midwest

M3I1D2W4E1S1T1

Today it means: The area of the contiguous United States contained in the central third of the country, especially the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, sometimes inclusive of Missouri and Kentucky. Full definition →

English West ← Middle English mid ← Old English midd
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*me
  2. Proto-Indo-European*dʰeh₁-?
  3. Proto-Indo-European*médʰi
  4. Proto-Indo-European*médʰyos
  5. Proto-Germanic*midjaz
  6. Proto-West Germanic*midi
  7. Old Englishmidd
  8. Middle Englishmid
  9. Englishmid
  10. Englishmid-
  11. EnglishWest
  12. English todayMidwest

From mid- + West.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.