Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

Definition: MIDDLE-EARTH |
MIDDLE-EARTHNoun1. The world, considered as lying between heaven and hell. |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Mordorthe only place in Middle-Earth we don't want to see any closer, and it's the one place we're trying to get to. (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; writing credit: Frances Walsh) Do we leave Middle-earth to its fate? (The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers; writing credit: Frances Walsh) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Middle-earth is a fictitious land created by J. R. R. Tolkien where the action of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion takes place. Tolkien wrote extensively about the mythology and history of the land, which form the back-story for these stories. Most of these writings, with the exception of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, were edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher. Notable among them are the multiple volumes of The History of Middle-earth, which describes a larger cosmology which includes Middle-earth as well as Valinor, Númenor, and other lands.
Tolkien's mythological tales of Middle-earth are meant to be taken, fictitiously, as an ancient history of the Earth, particularly of Europe, from several thousand years before the lands took their present shape. In fact, three of the works claim to be the life work of Bilbo Baggins. Like Shakespeare's King Lear, they occupy a historical period that could not have actually existed.
The term "Middle-earth" was not invented by Tolkien; it occurs many times in Middle English (Middel-erde) and Old English writings (Middangeard). It occurs half a dozen times in Beowulf, and is cognate to Midgard in Old Norse. It is consistently misspelled as 'Middle Earth' by journalists.
Although 'Middle-earth' strictly refers to a specific continent on Tolkien's fictional ancient earth, representing what we know as Eurasia and Africa, the term is sometimes erroneously used to refer to this entire 'earth' (properly called Arda).
The works of Tolkien have been a major influence on role-playing games along with others such as Robert E. Howard, Fritz Leiber, H.P. Lovecraft and Michael Moorcock. Although the most famous game to be inspired partially by the setting was Dungeons & Dragons, there have been two specifically Middle-earth based and licensed games. These are the Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game from Decipher Inc and the Middle Earth Role Play game (MERP) from Iron Crown Enterprises.
The computer game Angband is a free roguelike D&D-style game that features many characters from Tolkien's works.
A note on "truth" and canon
It is remarkably difficult to speak of what is true in the context of Middle-earth, perhaps more so than for any other fictional world, such as Greek mythology. The reasons for this are three:

A map of the Northwestern part of Middle-earth after the end of the First Age, courtesy of the Encyclopedia of ArdaCosmology
Historical periods
Characters
Races
Places
Countries and other large places are shown in italics; cities and other small places are shown in standard font.
See also Aman, Númenor for places outside Middle-earth.Major languages
Items
Weapons
Unions
Role-playing Games
Computer Games
External links
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Middle-earth."
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| "MIDDLE-EARTH" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 92.31% of the time. "MIDDLE-EARTH" is used about 13 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 92.31% | 12 | 101,599 |
| Noun (proper) | 7.69% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 13 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Language | Translations for "MIDDLE-EARTH"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||
Chinese | 中间地球. (various references) | ||||
Korean | 중간 대지. (various references) | ||||
Pig Latin | iddle-earthmay | ||||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-d-d-e-e-h-i-l-m-r-t" | |
-3 letters: deadlier, derailed, detailed, detailer, diameter, dihedral, dithered, elaterid, haltered, heralded, lathered, materiel, mediated, realtime, redialed, remailed, remedial, retailed, threaded, trameled, treadled. | |
-4 letters: adhered, admired, airthed, alerted, altered, atelier, dartled, deaired, delated, delimed, demerit, derated, diehard, diether, dilated, dilater, dimeter, dreamed, dreidel, earthed, emailed, emerald, emerita, emirate, haltere, headier, hearted, ideated, lathier, leadier. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4D 49 44 44 4C 45 2D 45 41 52 54 48 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
|
Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001101 01001001 01000100 01000100 01001100 01000101 00101101 01000101 01000001 01010010 01010100 01001000 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)M I D D L E - E A R T H |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004D 0049 0044 0044 004C 0045 002D 0045 0041 0052 0054 0048 |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)474338384639153935525442 |
| 1. Definition 2. Usage: Modern 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Usage Frequency | 5. Translations: Modern 6. Anagrams 7. Orthography 8. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
| Note to the press & webmasters - this dictionary can be linked, indexed, or referred to using the following non-English expressions: woordeboek, fjalor, معجم, قاموس, diccionariu, речник, diccionari, diksyonario, diksinario, 字典, gérlyver, slovník, ordbog, woordenboek, shimiyuc p'anca, orðabók, orðbók, dictionnaire, wurdboek, wörterbuch, λεξικό, אוצר מילים, szótár, uqausiit tukingit, dizionario, 字引 , じい, じびき, じて", ディクショナリー , じり", じしょ, '"かい, ディクショナリ , 사 , dizionari, recnik, fockleyr, dikshonario, słownik, dicionário, dicţionar, dicziunari, словарь, lolomi fefiloi, foclair, abardair, faclair, briathrachan, pukuntau, leksikon, rečnik, vocabbulariu, diccionario, sí-chazamagâma, ordbok, lexikon, พจนานุกรม, sözlük, ansiklopedik sözlük, словник, довідник, có tính chất sách vở, geirlyfr, geiriadur, for dictionary; definisie, qartësi, përcaktim, saktësi, الوضوحية في الشيء, حد, تحديد, تعريف, التحديد, الإيضاحية, яснота, сила, очертания, дефиниция, 定義 , 定义, definice, deskriptordefinition, definitie, määritelmä, définition, ορισμός, "'"ר", "'בל", meghatározás, definíció, definizione, 確定 , ディーゼル電気車 , デ'ドロ酢酸 , デフィニション , ディフィニション , ていぎ, かくてい, 의, geyrid, meenaghey, keeayllaght, baght, definishon, definição, definiţie, determinare, definire, определение, definicija, definición, definition, açıklama, belirleme, belirtme, kesinleştirme, tanım, tarif, seçiklik, tanımlama, чіткість, тлумачення, виразність, визначення, дефініція, ясність, чітка чутність, sự định rõ, sự định nghĩa, lời định nghĩa sự định, diffiniad, darnodiad, for definition; vertaling, transferim, transmetim, ترجمة من لغة أجنبية للغة الأم, ترجمة, إفتتان, транслация, огъване, превод, предаване, поддаване, тълкуване, превеждане, 翻译, překlad, oversættelse, translatie, taajuusmuutos, translaatio, traduction, oersetting, Übersetzung, μετάφραση, תור'מ ות, תר'ום, "עתק", "עתק, fordítás, traduzione, 翻訳 , へい"ういどう, やくしょ, やくしゅつ, "うどく, ほ"やく, トランスレーション , やくじゅつ, ほ"やくしょ, 번역, tradukshon, tradução, translaţie, tãlmãcire, traducere, сдвиг, трансляция, перемещение, перевод, tumačenje, traducción, översättning, tercüme, процес перекладу, переклад, пояснення, переміщення, sự dịch, sự biến th nh sự giải thích, trosiad, for translation; Sjinees, Chinees, kinez, الصينية, لغة الصين, صيني, الصيني أحد أبناء الصين, Chinu, китайски, Ininsik, 汉语, 中 , 漢 , 中國 , èínský, èínština, èíòan, kineser, kinesiskt, kinverskur, kiinalainen, Chinois, Sineesk, Chinesisch, Κινέζος, κινέζικα, κινέζικοσ, κινέζοσ, σινικόσ, kínai, Kínverji, Sínis, cinese, チフス菌 , チャイニーズ , 중국, Cina, Sheenish, Sheenagh, Hainamana, chines, Chińczyk, chinês, chinés, chinezesc, chinezeşte, chinezã, chinez, китайский, китаец, Saina, kineski jezik, kineski, chino, snesi, sneysi, kinesisk, çinli, çince, çin ile ilgili, çin, китаянка, китайська мова, китайський, кита"ць, for Chinese; korean, كوري شمالي, اللغة الكورية, كوري جنوبي, كوري, Coreanu, корейски, корейски език, Koryano, 韩国语, "國 , 朝鮮語 , korejský, korejec, korejština, Koreaans, koreanskt, coréen, Koreaansk, koreanisch, Koreaner, κορεάτησ, κορεάτικοσ, koreai, 한국, koreano, coréia, a língua coreana, coreean, limba coreeanã, кореец, корейский, Kolea, korejski jezik, korejski, koreanac, coreano, koreansk, ชาวเกาหลี, kore'li, кореянка, коре"ць, корейська мова, корейський, người Triều tiên tiếng Triều tiên, for korean; |