Mediterranean

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin mediterrāneus (“inland, far from the coast”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} with the suffix -an.^[2][7][8] The Latin adjective is from medius (“middle”) and terra (“land, earth”),^[2][4][5] which Etymonline and the American Heritage Dictionary trace to Proto-Indo-European *medhyo- (“middle”) and Proto-Indo-European *ters- (“to dry”).^[9][4] The OED takes it as modelled on Ancient Greek μεσόγαιος (mesógaios, “situated in the middle of land”), from μέσος (mésos, “situated in the middle”) and γῆ (gê, “earth”).^[2] The Latin word was first used of the sea in the post-classical phrase Late Latin mare Mediterrāneum, which the OED dates to the 3rd or 4th century and Etymonline to the 7th.^[2][9] The name may first have meant the sea in the middle of the earth, not the sea enclosed by land.^{[2][5][10][11]} The sea has parallel names in Italian Mare Mediterraneo (1282), Spanish Mar Mediterráneo (1490) and Middle French mer Méditerranée (1534, in Rabelais).^[2] English first had the forms Mediterranie, about 1400, and Mediterrane.^[9][2][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The name of the sea: about 1556, in N. Smyth's translation of Herodian.^[2] An earlier form, Mediterranie, is dated about 1400,^[9][10] and Etymonline gives the 1590s for the present spelling.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Weekley notes that the use for one particular sea came before the general sense.^[12] Old English had called it Wendelsæ, after the Vandals.^[9] By 1595 the adjective covered the sea's lands and their culture.^[2] In the 17th century, following the Latin, it also meant inland: Trench quotes Henry Holland on "your mediterranean city, Coventry", and remarks that only seas are "mediterranean" now, with "inland" having taken over.^[13][2][5] From 1813 it could describe any nearly landlocked body of water.^[2] In the late 19th century the word was applied to a supposed racial type, from 1876 in the OED and 1888 for the noun in Etymonline,^[2][9] and in 1888 to a climate of hot dry summers and mild wet winters.^[2][3]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – the form Mediterranie.^[9][10]
• c. 1556 – the name of the sea.^[2]
• 1595 – of the sea, its lands or their culture.^[2]
• 1601 – of land, inland, in Holland's Pliny.^[2]
• 1621 – noun, the Mediterranean.^[2]
• 1661 – noun, an inland sea or lake.^[2]
• 1813 – of a body of water, landlocked.^[2]
• 1876 – of a supposed racial type; an inhabitant of the region.^[2]
• 1888 – of a climate.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or situated on or near the Mediterranean Sea.^[14][15][2]
2. Of or typical of the countries around that sea, or of their peoples and culture: a Mediterranean diet.^[15][2][3]
3. Of a climate with hot dry summers and mild wet winters.^[2][3]
4. (physical anthropology) Of a supposed racial type found around that sea, of slender build and dark complexion.^[14][15][2]
5. Also mediterranean: of a body of water, nearly or wholly landlocked.^[15][2][3]
6. (archaic) Of land, inland, remote from the coast.^[15][2][13]

Noun

1. the Mediterranean: the sea between southern Europe and Africa; also the islands and countries of the area.^[14][2][3]
2. An inhabitant of a Mediterranean country.^[14][2]
3. A person of the Mediterranean physical type.^[15][2][3]
4. (rare) Also mediterranean: an inland sea.^[15][2]

Word family

• Mediterranean climate
• Mediterranean fever
• Mediterranean flour moth
• Mediterranean fruit fly
• Mediterranean Sea

Related words

• medium
• middle
• terra
• terrestrial
• mid
• terrace
• subterranean

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
14. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
15. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster