I.nounCOLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
a middle position (=one that is between two extreme positions)
▪ They took a middle position, favouring decentralization but with some controls.
approach middle age (=be almost middle-aged)
▪ a stocky, balding man who was approaching middle age
be in the middle/midst of a recession
▪ We are in the midst of a world recession.
be well into middle age (=be obviously middle-aged, probably at least 50)
▪ Most of the people there were well into middle age.
early middle age (=around age 40)
▪ Two women in early middle age sat next to him.
high/low/middle rank
▪ Her father had been an army officer of fairly high rank.
in the middle of the night
▪ She woke up suddenly in the middle of the night.
inner/middle ear (=the parts inside your ear, which you use to hear sounds)
▪ I've got an infection in my middle ear.
late middle age (=around age 60)
▪ a well-dressed man in late middle age
middle age (=between about 40 and 60)
▪ He was in late middle age.
Middle Ages
Middle America
middle C
middle class
▪ This led to the creation of a new, affluent middle class.
middle distance
▪ She just stood there gazing into the middle distance.
middle ear
Middle East
middle finger
middle ground
▪ The negotiators could find no middle ground.
middle management (=the people in charge of small groups within an organization)
middle management
middle manager (=someone who manages a small part of a company)
▪ a middle manager in a computer company
middle name
▪ Don’t worry – discretion is my middle name.
middle school
Middle West
reach middle age (=be middle-aged)
▪ You need to start saving for retirement before you reach middle age.
smack in the middle/in front of sth etc
▪ There was a hole smack in the middle of the floor.
split sth in two/down the middle
▪ The war has split the nation in two.
steer a middle course (=chose a strategy that was not extreme)
▪ The government chose to steer a middle course between the two strategies .
the beginning/end/middle of the month
▪ You’ll receive your wages at the end of the month.
the inside/middle/outside lane
▪ Use the outside lane for overtaking only.
the Middle Ages (=the period in European history between about 1100 and 1500 AD)
the middle class
▪ A new middle class emerged after the war.
the middle of the afternoon
▪ It was the middle of a long hot summer afternoon.
the middle/centre ground (=opinions that are not extreme that most people would agree with)
▪ Both parties are battling to occupy the centre ground.
▪ Careful, Laura. You could be treading on dangerous ground expressing opinions etc that might offend someone.
▪ Each side was unwilling to give ground change their opinion.
the top/bottom/middle drawer
▪ He opened the bottom drawer and got out a T-shirt.
the upper/middle/lower register
▪ the upper register of the cello
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADJECTIVE
right
▪ Mattan and the yellow jersey were right in the middle of the pack as it peddled hard in the blistering heat.
▪ It will probably start on Boxing Day when we are right in the middle of winter.
▪ My house is right in the middle of Stratford-upon-Avon, and I can watch the street market from my window.
▪ And then right in the middle is the lovely old wine town of Traben-Trarbach.
■ NOUN
class
▪ There is no middle class and little opportunity to improve one's lot.
▪ They are mostly over age 50, middle class and overwhelmingly Protestant.
▪ The opposition mostly represents the upper-middle class and intellectual elite.
▪ Forecasts of the size of the world middle class are of course problematic.
▪ It was for the upper middle class in their station wagons that rumbled over our heads at night.
▪ But in the early sixties, Loyola was pretty mucha school for white males from the middle and upper middle class.
▪ On this assumption, a ballpark number for the world middle class population by 2025 would be about 3. 7 billion.
▪ Most beneficiaries of federal housing subsidies are wealthy or at least upper middle class.
manager
▪ The questions of the fallen middle managers, however, are not trivial or self-centered.
name
▪ Know his likes and dislikes; know what makes him happy and sad; know his middle name.
▪ Let's just say this: Pretension is thy middle name.
▪ I think Serious is your middle name.
■ VERB
catch
▪ I got caught in the middle of it.
▪ Do you understand the danger of getting caught in the middle? 7.
▪ Those firms which get caught in the middle appear not to do so well.
▪ Los Feliz has found itself caught in the middle of the battle.
▪ And we, the staff, were caught in the middle.
run
▪ A polished mahogany table, big enough to seat twenty people, ran down the middle of it.
▪ Permafrost line runs right through middle, I think.
▪ A long narrow corridor ran down the middle of the building with doors leading off it.
▪ Most teams like to run at the middle of the Dallas defense.
▪ She wondered why they didn't all run together in the middle.
▪ I can run along the middle.
▪ The frontier of the Agenais ran right through the middle of the town.
▪ Officials said they would lead to danger on the busy A689 which runs through the middle of the community.
sit
▪ They sat together in the middle of the plane.
▪ It sat forlornly in the middle of an arid coastal basin, lacking both a port and a railroad.
▪ Jamieson sat down in the middle of the sofa facing the fireplace, and asked Bob to sit down too.
▪ Dorothy sat down in the middle of the raft and held Toto in her arms.
▪ Horne, deeply agitated by a mixture of fear, terror and forced bravado, went and sat in the middle.
▪ Gorbachev and Reagan sat in the middle of the table on opposite sides, flanked by their aides.
▪ A woman walked in and sat at the middle of the counter - Maxim had chosen the furthest end.
▪ When chairs sit in the middle of a space, the back might be the first part you see.
stand
▪ Pretending to be an Arab, Phillips stood in the middle of the track with a blanket over his head.
▪ Only Ray and a high school student named Devon Franklin remained standing in the middle of the nave.
▪ William and Anna stand in the middle of the room.
▪ The man was standing undecided in the middle of the road like a rabbit caught in headlights at night.
▪ The clerk was standing in the middle of the lobby, staring.
▪ They stood in the middle of the road as we approached cautiously.
▪ Polly was standing in the middle of the floor, her hair brush raised above her head.
stop
▪ As soon as I decided not to go farther than Cambridge, I wanted to stop dead in the middle of the road.
▪ At Third Avenue, two turning busses were stopped in the middle of the intersection.
▪ Eventually it stopped in the middle of nowhere.
▪ I stopped in the middle of all those steps and felt for a second just salt and sea.
▪ When I was out shopping last year, 1 saw a guy stop in the middle of the sidewalk.
▪ Pike stopped in the middle of the tarmac.
▪ She stopped in the middle of a scream and the breath left her body with a groan.
wake
▪ I woke in the middle of the night and walked downstairs.
▪ I wake up in the middle of the night from a dream.
▪ If she woke up in the middle of the night, she'd be frightened.
▪ Powell woke Howland in the middle of the night and poured out his conviction, but it was too late.
▪ Maureen West says her daughter is still having nightmares and waking up in the middle of the night.
▪ I woke up in the middle of the night and took all of Jay's clothes out of the wardrobe.
▪ I woke up in the middle of the night to find that I was completely and utterly saturated.
▪ But there's one thing which still sometimes wakes me in the middle of the night.
PHRASES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
piggy in the middle
sth is sb's middle name
▪ Don't worry - consistency is my middle name.
▪ I think Serious is your middle name.
▪ Let's just say this: Pretension is thy middle name.
▪ Optimism is my middle name because, unable to agree on a name, my parents stuck a pin in a dictionary.
the Middle Ages
the Middle East
the Middle West
the middle distance
▪ Ezra leaned against the sink and stared off into the middle distance.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ "Did you enjoy the movie?" "It was OK but I got a little bored towards the middle."
▪ Gary rowed out towards the middle of the lake.
▪ Going through the middle of Tokyo in the rush hour can be a nightmare.
▪ It was the middle of summer.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But by the middle of the night, the alcohol will be metabolized and the rebound effect will set in.
▪ I had a spell in the middle of the season when I was useless.
▪ It was very hard work and during the middle we had a water fight.
▪ Somewhere in the middle lies the case for change.
▪ The group also is in the middle of a $ 45, 000 project to renovate a pagoda in the ancient quarter.
▪ The office block was in the middle of a hellish whirlwind.
▪ The state built 10 prisons from the opening of San Quentin in 1852 until the middle of the last decade.
▪ Time spent in taking stock is time well spent, even in the middle of a hectic day.
II.adjectiveCOLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
age
▪ In the middle ages, celebrations lasted from Christmas to Epiphany.
▪ In middle age a nation seeks safety and consolidation of material gain.
▪ There I found a respectable-looking woman of middle age sitting on a sofa, sniffing tobacco.
▪ The Crown Prince had reached early middle age without marrying.
▪ He also had a disinterested fascination with the records of the middle ages, especially those of the west country.
▪ Life expectancy for all patients is middle age, and heart failure is the leading cause of death.
▪ Preserve me from the self-confidence of a famous late middle age.
▪ His body is less Muscle Beach than early middle age.
child
▪ They may send the middle children to Jessy's parents in an attempt to get the eldest through secondary school.
▪ Now, for the middle child.
▪ The wronged self Peter is the middle child of five.
▪ Richard Nixon: A middle child who became known for diplomacy in foreign affairs, among other things.
class
▪ On the other hand, while self help by its very nature is participatory, it has a strong middle class bias.
▪ There was for example the capacity of an expanding middle class to afford their own homes.
▪ It is easy to pretend that the values and standard of behaviour about which I am speaking are genteel or middle class.
▪ The new middle classes of industrial capitalism produced symbols which helped realize the value of industrial commodities.
▪ Nevertheless their Bible was widely circulated not only among the middle classes but among the nobility.
▪ But what about the poor and the lower middle class?
▪ What little they spoke was in the specially reverent voice reserved by the middle classes for times of bereavement.
course
▪ How wide is the floodplain of the River Wharfe in this middle course of the valley?
▪ Managers must steer a middle course between political correctness and political babble.
▪ I usually steer a middle course which avoids both waste and effort.
▪ Pendulums move to extremes before they steady to the middle course, and so do journalistic trends.
▪ But I can find no middle course.
▪ He steered a middle course between intimacy and aloofness which would have endeared him to the most demanding of guests.
▪ In what ways do lower course valleys differ from middle course valleys?
▪ Was there a middle course she could take?
distance
▪ With glazed eyes he was staring into the middle distance.
▪ Captain Samphan was walking fast across the road in the middle distance, ordering some of the troops into the paddy field.
▪ Trees and grasses Coming to the middle distance, I now encounter trees.
▪ His father pushed back his chair and stood and leaned back against the sink, looking into the middle distance.
▪ Like Querelle, men in tatty soiled uniforms are flexing their muscles, while others stare vacantly into the middle distance.
▪ Half the folks gazing placidly into the middle distance were too stoned to blink.
▪ Few of them were caused by melancholy to sit staring slackly into the middle distance.
▪ Clayt drew up his shoulders and stared into the middle distance, as though he were finished.
ear
▪ When the cause of deafness is not solely in the outer and/or middle ear, high frequencies are likely to be affected.
▪ In fact, an ear infection alone can cause sudden severe pain as fluid builds up in the middle ear.
▪ Mean hearing thresholds are related mainly to the presence or absence of fluid in the middle ear.
▪ Vibrations or sound waves cause the eardrum to vibrate and these vibrations move through the middle ear to the inner ear.
▪ Three rats in the low fibre diet group suffered from middle ear infections and were removed from the study.
▪ An inflammation in the middle ear called otitis media can cause temporary or even permanent hearing loss.
▪ Microtympanometry, a sensitive method of diagnosing effusions of the middle ear, could help them in this.
▪ There is further evidence that untreated middle ear disease in childhood may have permanent effects.
east
▪ It could be Bosnia, it could be the middle east.
▪ They could not agree on the Gulf conflict and seem to have no agreed middle east policy.
▪ Mr. Janner I am sure that the Secretary of State recognises the sensitivities of the middle east peace process.
finger
▪ I was squealing with delight at the tricks his middle finger was playing when suddenly Captain leapt on us growling.
▪ Torn webbing between his right ring and middle fingers and a torn knee cartilage in 1992.
▪ Pausing at the door he turned once more and extended the middle finger of his right hand towards the bed.
▪ The hand withdrew, three middle fingers slathered.
▪ You will often see recipients tapping the table with the three middle fingers of one hand while their cup is being filled.
▪ The middle finger traced a heart on her lips.
▪ When the Reclusiarch passed back again, each initiate must hold out his middle finger, pointing stiffly forward from his fist.
ground
▪ He has continued to cling to the middle ground, but that ground has been shifting.
▪ Wynns held a colorful conversation with Sierra Club representative Howard Strassner to see if they could find middle ground.
▪ The Law can also be applied to the depth dimension, with a fulcrum in the middle ground.
▪ But it is a middle ground that hundreds of police officers use daily.
▪ This is the kind of argument that Clinton loves; it sets him on the middle ground.
▪ The middle ground of reason has long been lost on this issue.
▪ This upgrade places Dreamweaver firmly back in the middle ground without compromising the professional integrity of previous releases.
▪ The undecided middle ground is where the doubts can be talked out.
income
▪ Macleod was attacked by both liberals and conservatives in the Legco for failing to provide sufficient tax concessions to middle income earners.
▪ Current law restricts them to those with middle incomes and below.
▪ On the other hand, over the range of middle incomes, the percentages again remain broadly constant.
▪ In the low and middle income countries, life expectancy remained static at 68 years.
▪ We had little to say to those on middle incomes whose votes decide elections.
▪ Second, Michael Portillo's tax cuts, carefully aimed at middle income earners, will appeal on the doorstep.
▪ Trafalgar House's Sir Eric Parker says the tax squeeze on middle income earners could hit house prices.
▪ Items such as double glazing and cavity wall insulation are standard for middle income homes.
lane
▪ The Yugo finally skidded to a halt upside down and straddling the middle lane.
▪ She drove in the middle lane, skimming past lorries.
▪ There he was, making a name for himself after all those years in racing's middle lane.
management
▪ We also recruit some assistant food and beverage managers with experience directly into middle management positions.
▪ Rumors swept up from the factory floor and lofted back down again from the cubicles of middle management.
▪ Information is now provided for various Government departments and senior and middle management throughout the organisation.
▪ At the other extreme, you might distinguish only among top management, middle management, and the front lines.
▪ Some companies have dispensed with the middle management function altogether.
▪ Gordon is in customer support for a large computer company so heavy in middle management that he hardly ever works.
▪ Again, it was the middle management ranks that suffered the severest cuts.
▪ The post-independence generation is already in middle management positions.
manager
▪ Computers are belatedly replacing thousands of clerical staff and middle managers.
▪ In the organizational hierarchy of the past, middle managers were the people who remembered things, who passed on corporate culture.
▪ There are no layers of middle managers relaying messages - the environment is perfect for communication and intuition.
▪ Most of the layoffs hit middle managers, who will get severance packages of one to two years' pay and benefits.
▪ These will be drawn up by the teacher and should relate to those set by middle managers.
▪ But now modern information technology is making many of the former tasks of middle managers redundant.
▪ It seems inevitable that the flattening process will continue and that middle managers will continue to be squeezed.
▪ Indeed, there is every reason to suspect that middle managers are an endangered species.
market
▪ Only the Sunday Express, among all the middle market populars, was still a broadsheet in 1990.
name
▪ If so, no one would ever have dared to tease him about his middle name.
▪ Once you did something notorious, they tagged you with an extra name, a middle name that was ordinarily never used.
▪ Optimism is my middle name because, unable to agree on a name, my parents stuck a pin in a dictionary.
▪ Where I come from, the middle name is fight.
▪ It is essential to get full names of the client, including any middle names.
▪ For some reason he hated that middle name of his.
▪ Partisanship should be their middle name.
▪ They share the same middle name.
part
▪ What happens in the middle part of each phase may seem - mistakenly - unimportant.
▪ The humped-up middle part was clear of the water.
▪ The crescent-shaped eyes are attached to the middle part of the head.
▪ The middle part of Figure 1 shows a small selection of the retina enlarged.
▪ As time goes by ... The middle part of pregnancy is the best for most women.
▪ The good part, the early part, the middle part, the later part.
range
▪ Mr Patten scored well in the middle range, for example the town and country planning issues which most concern his own supporters.
▪ The Presario 4000 line of desktop and mini-tower computers is aimed at the lower and middle ranges of the market.
▪ The middle range, perhaps, was where a comfortable, accomplished actor could exist and grow.
▪ It falls into the middle range of portable belt sanders.
road
▪ The night was dark and still and the middle road had an eerie, forbidding atmosphere.
school
▪ My own work on middle school teachers provides some support for this view.
▪ In middle school, your children would rather attend your execution than have you attend their field trip.
▪ Another letter from the middle school was about a visiting theatre group and asked for money as well as a tear-off slip.
▪ Linda first saw Red at a middle school volleyball game.
▪ Such exposure should begin in middle school and increase in intensity and focus in high school.
▪ At the time of going press, primary and middle schools are being reorganized.
▪ Most of the local middle schools now expose students to careers through business speakers and visits to companies.
section
▪ The only place that is well out from the banks on a river is the middle section.
▪ The poem has three sections corresponding to the changes of rhyme, but with a peculiarity in the middle section.
▪ The lozenge-shaped objects in the middle section of the cell are mostly mitochondria.
▪ A lyrical middle section precedes to a repeated theme reinforced by a military drum gone mad.
▪ Some road walking is included especially in the middle section between moors.
▪ Try aiming for a beginning, a middle section and an ending.
way
▪ The middle way seeks to formalise, or at least make explicit, normative patterns in the general activity of reading.
▪ In sum, the mixed economy is a middle way between the market and the command political economies.
▪ However, some middle way between a basic inventory and a fully detailed record is possible.
▪ To help him resolve it, he brought in General Joseph McNarney, who eventually decided on a middle way.
▪ Essentially they are the party of the centre ground, the middle way.
▪ Perhaps there is a middle way.
▪ But for Labour, there seems no satisfactory middle way of electing their two top people.
years
▪ All these artists were the height of fashion in the middle years of the 19C.
▪ She would spend her middle years turning me into the man who would redeem her failed youth.
▪ After the hectic middle years, couples may renew or begin activities together for which there had not previously been time.
▪ She had scrambled through the middle years of the decade.
▪ Direct royal involvement in ecclesiastical affairs intensified from the middle years of the decade.
▪ And sadly, many of the people it kills are in their middle years.
▪ The reason why it is more productive in these middle years is simple.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ A white carpet ran down the middle aisle of the church.
▪ I missed the middle part of the movie.
▪ It's in the middle drawer of the file cabinet.
▪ Jane was wearing a gold ring on her middle finger.
▪ There were three of children in my family, and I was the middle one.
▪ You'll find the scissors in the middle drawer of my desk.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ In the organizational hierarchy of the past, middle managers were the people who remembered things, who passed on corporate culture.
▪ Instead, it was a real middle class, of diverse origins, pushed to the fore by changing conditions.
▪ Life expectancy for all patients is middle age, and heart failure is the leading cause of death.
▪ Secondly, she never lived to middle age.
▪ The middle assassin fired even as she dropped.
▪ The constituency's middle ground is a mess.
▪ We also recruit some assistant food and beverage managers with experience directly into middle management positions.