Word.ws English Dictionary

midcentury

midcentury adjective: occurring around the middle of the century. (Elliptically refers to whichever century is evident from the context of a discussion.).

Adjective

midcentury (not generally comparable, comparative more midcentury, superlative most midcentury)

  1. (not comparable, usually) Occurring around the middle of the century. (Elliptically refers to whichever century is evident from the context of a discussion.)
    • midcentury modern
    • This midcentury masterpiece was overlooked at the time it was created.

Noun

midcentury

  1. The midpoint or middle portion of a century.
    • at midcentury
    • by midcentury

Examples of midcentury in a sentence

  • This ashtray is very midcentury, but that lamp is the most midcentury thing I've seen all year.
  • She wrote an essay taking stock of the movement at midcentury.
  • Get a whiff of the models that served our grandfathers well: They now combine the must of a midcentury hatbox with the musk of 21st-­century body spray.2015 November 24, Troy Patterson, “The Winter Hat Trick”, in The New York Times Magazine, archived from the original on 26 Feb 2019:

Forms of midcentury

comparativemore midcentury
superlativemost midcentury
alternative formmid-century

Origin of midcentury

From mid- + century.

Questions about midcentury

What does midcentury mean?
Midcentury means occurring around the middle of the century. (Elliptically refers to whichever century is evident from the context of a discussion.).
How do you use midcentury in a sentence?
This ashtray is very midcentury, but that lamp is the most midcentury thing I've seen all year.
What part of speech is midcentury?
Midcentury can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near midcentury in the dictionary

  1. midcaudal
  2. midcaudally
  3. midcell
  4. midcells
  5. midcentral
  6. midcentury
  7. midcervical
  8. midchain
  9. midchannel
  10. midchapter
  11. midcharge

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: midcentury (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “midcentury.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/midcentury. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.