Midlandadj.n.

a1475 (a1447) O. Bokenham Mappula Angliae in Englische Studien (1887) 10 20 (MED) Thes Eyghte mydlonde-shiris and west-shiris were Jugid lege mercea.

1601 P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World I. 40 In the midland parts far from the sea.

1675 J. Ogilby Britannia (1698) 6 The chief Trade [of Bristol] is manag'd from Wales, and the Midland-Countries.

1785 J. Phillips Treat. Inland Navigation p. vi The inhabitants of the Northern..parts of England, would be little acquainted..with those of the mid-land parts.

1818 W. Scott Heart of Mid-Lothian iv, in Waverley Novels (1830) II. 58 We'll send Robertson word to meet us in Yorkshire, for there is a set o' braw lads about the mid-land counties.

1846 Rep. 15th Meeting Brit. Assoc. Advancem. Sci. 1845 90 The duration of life is..greater in the Northern than in the Midland States, and greater in the Midland than in the Southern States.

1851 H. Stephens Bk. of Farm I. 157 In use in Forfarshire and the midland districts.

1851 J. F. W. Johnston Notes N. Amer. 174 He was an Englishman from a more southern district, and had been the manager of a chemical work in some of the midland counties.

a1865 E. C. Gaskell Wives & Daughters (1866) I. xxvii. 309 He had chosen a southern county as being far removed from those midland shires where the name of Hamley of Hamley was well and widely known.

1888 Catholic World Dec. 304 An incident related to me by a gentleman of position in one of the midland counties [of Ireland].

1942 Short Guide Great Brit. (U.S. War Dept.) 7 The great ‘midland’ manufacturing cities of Birmingham, Sheffield, and Coventry.

1950 D. Jones Phoneme xxviii. 206 The speech of Midland districts of England.

1970 R. W. Thomas Iron & Steel i. 3/2 The large belt of clay iron-stone running through the Midland counties of Oxford, Northampton, Rutland and Lincoln.

1973 E. Palmer & N. Pitman Trees Southern Afr. III. 1905 Kamassi occurs in numbers in the Midland forests of the Cape.

1998 National Trust Mag. Autumn 42/3 Huge old Cat's Head trees can still be seen in Midland and Cotswold villages.

a1475 (a1447) O. Bokenham Mappula Angliae in Englische Studien (1887) 10 32 The mydlonde peple is betwix þe norþyn & þe sowþirne.

1752 M. Browne Ess. on Universe (new ed.) i, in Wks. & Rest of Creation 7 Their apt Positions, rang'd from East to West, The Vapoury Forces in their March arrest; That, North and South..Wou'd Mid-Land Climes deprive of succouring Show'rs.

1756 A. Butler Lives Saints I. 45 St. Cedd..first preached to the Midland English.

1837 W. Youatt Sheep viii. 341 The Midland Long-woolled Sheep.

1872 I. Asklöf (title) An essay on the Romance of William and the Werwolf. A specimen of the Midland dialect in the middle of the 14th. century.

1922 J. Joyce Ulysses iii. xvii. [Ithaca] 671 The Link line railway laid..between the cattle park, Liffey junction, and terminus of Midland Great Western railway.., in proximity to the terminal stations or Dublin branches of Great Central Railway, Midland Railway of England [etc.].

1971 M. Lee Dying for Fun xlii. 202 Ivor Canning had made his way to Oxford but..still spoke with a well-preserved Midlands accent.

1995 N. Whittaker Platform Souls (1996) xxvii. 209 The Trent Valley line was decidedly exotic, a silver speedway through the flat Midlands scenery.

1873 Appletons' Jrnl. 25 Jan. 159/3 Collision on Midland Railroad, N. J.; an engineer killed.

1874 J. D. McCabe Hist. Grange Movement i. x. 186 It became known that the New York & Oswego Midland Railway Company had come to grief.

1890 Dial. Notes 1 58 The differences in the different sections of the country are not so great that we can properly speak of a New England dialect, a southern dialect, a midland dialect.

1900 B. B. Smyth Plants & Flowers Kansas 43 This is the Midland adder-tongue, as named by Prof. Knerr of Atchison.

1937 Life 10 May 17/1 The characteristic midland house set in its own yard.

1944 H. Kurath in Language 20 151 I hope to be able to show before long, on the basis of the Atlas materials, that we must recognize a large Central or Midland speech area in addition to the Southern, the Northern, and the Northeastern (eastern New England).

1959 E. Tunis Indians vi. 86 Midland Indians were farmers first, but they all..hunted buffalo.

1962 Publ. Amer. Dial. Soc. xxxviii. 38 Rain spouts and water spouting predominate in Midland territory.

1975 Amer. Speech 1973 48 54 Westward into central Ohio and Indiana and Illinois moved the speakers of what Kurath has described as the Midland dialect.

1579 W. Fulke Heskins Parl. Repealed in D. Heskins Ouerthrowne 34 From the mid lande sea to both the Oceans.

1596 J. Davies Orchestra i. sig. A3 Ten yeere at siedge of Troy he lingring lay, And ten yeere in the Midland-sea did stray.

1651 E. Prestwich tr. Seneca Hippolitus 69* They'd made a perfect Microcosme of man; Their bladders were the Midland Ocean; Their bellies the Ægæan Sea.

1683 T. Hoy Agathocles 3 Fruitful Italy, The Pride, and Envy of the Mid-land Sea.

1748 A. Philips Poems 87 Fleecy clouds, which o'er the mid-land main Hang pois'd in air, to bless the isles with rain.

1818 Ld. Byron Childe Harold: Canto IV clxxv. 90 The midland ocean breaks on him and me.

1853 M. Arnold Scholar Gipsy in Poems (new ed.) 215 O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale, Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily.

1892 Ld. Tennyson Foresters ii. i. 69 He My brother,..For ever in a Moorish tower, or wreckt And dead beneath the midland ocean.

1901 E. Markham Lincoln & Other Poems 51 Elder kingdoms by the Midland Sea, Whose every crag has burned with battle-fire.

1929 B. Jarrett Hist. Europe i. 13 The triumphant Northern nations prove their triumph by entering with pomp into that highway of European pageantry, the Mid-land Sea.

1660 R. Coke Elements Power & Subjection 36 in Justice Vindicated In lib. 3. cap. 4 he [sc. Diodorus] makes four kinds of Libyans to inhabit the midland coasts about Cyrene and Cirtes.

1718 M. Prior Solomon on Vanity i, in Poems Several Occasions (new ed.) 412 Is all in Heaps of Water lost, Beyond the Islands, and the Mid-land Coast?

1770 E. Thompson Court of Cupid 60 She who brought mighty Cæsar on his knees, To pay the turnpike to the seat of ease: That flowry seat on Ida's mid-land shore.

1804 D. Humphrey Misc. Wks. 54 Oh ye great pow'rs, who passports basely crave From Afric's lords, to sail the midland wave.

1807 J. Barlow Columbiad vii. 249 But while dread Elliott shakes the Midland wave, They strive in vain the Calpian rock to brave.

1555 R. Eden tr. Peter Martyr of Angleria Decades of Newe Worlde f. 320 The three sayde prouinces occupy this mydlande of the worlde.

1612 M. Drayton Poly-olbion xiii. 213 Vpon the Mid-lands now th' industrious Muse doth fall.

a1637 B. Jonson Timber 1913 in Wks. (1640) III As if..a Gentleman of Northampton-shire, Warwick-shire, or the Mid-land, should fetch all his Illustrations to his countrey neighbours from shipping.

1684 T. Burnet Theory of Earth i. ii. 15 If the Sea lie..lower generally than the shore, and much more than the mid-land.

1727 A. Hamilton New Acct. E. Indies II. l. 216 The mid Lands seem very mountainous.

1812 I. D'Israeli Calam. Auth. II. 177 Leland wandered on the sea-coasts, and in the midland.

1856 W. B. Bernard Evil Genius i. 24 He know'd what a hoss was, and he know'd a dog too—warn't such a pack ever seed in the Midlands; and warn't he fond on 'em, too! There was a gentleman—never out of the kennel.

1898 Story of Midlands 10 The Midlands are rich in mineral wealth.

1931 J. W. Gregory & B. H. Barrett Gen. Stratigr. x. 155 The Kimeridge Clay varies in thickness from 100 ft. in the Midlands to 1250 ft. in the Wealden bore near Hastings.

1952 Economist 27 Sept. 734/1 The West Midlands region, comprising the five counties of Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire, contains a high proportion of expanding industries.

1987 R. Godden Time to Dance (1989) 8 Those back-to-back, serried houses of the Midlands.

1785 T. Jefferson Notes Virginia xii. 191 Of these [counties in Virginia] 35 are on the tide waters, or in that parallel; 23 are in the Midlands, between the tide waters and Blue ridge of mountains; 8 between the Blue ridge and Alleghany; [etc.].

1807 J. Barlow Columbiad x. 363 From Mohawk's mouth, far westing with the sun, Thro all the midlands recent channels run.

1896 Dial. Notes 1 438 Midland: a belt separating the North from the South and extending from the Atlantic to the Mississippi (incuding Long Island, New York City and the adjoining counties, New Jersey, Del., all but the northern strip of Penn., the upper prong of West Virginia, southern Ohio, middle Ind., middle Ill., and St. Louis county, Mo.).

1937 Amer. Speech 12 316/1 For many years Middle West..has reigned in solitary authority; but there seems to be a growing tendency towards the use of three other terms descriptive of the region... Central West... Mid-west... Midland. This shorter and more picturesque title is still rare, but growing. As noun or adjective it occurs occasionally.

1941 W. J. Cash Mind of South i. i. 21 The son of a plain and slaveless farmer of the midlands of South Carolina.

1963 R. I. McDavid & D. W. Maurer Mencken's Amer. Lang. (new ed.) 405 The..‘General American’ area is really made up of two major dialects: one, Inland Northern..; the other, Midland, based on the speech of Pennsylvania and its derivatives.

1972 H. Kurath Stud. Area Ling. 44 The transition area between the North and the Midland reflects partly the complicated history of the settlement.

1989 D. H. Fischer Albion's Seed 543 ‘Cheese’ in the Delaware Valley as in the North Midlands became a generic term for ‘any sort of food thickened or partially dehydrated by slow cooking or pressing’.