midwest

UK/mɪdˈwɛst/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Inland Northern American/mɪdˈwɛst/

midwest is the alternative spelling of Midwest.

Proper noun capitalized: Midwest

the Midwest

The area of the contiguous United States contained in the central third of the country, especially the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, sometimes inclusive of Missouri and Kentucky.
- Many of the dynamics today in West Virginia would be familiar in old industrial towns in the Northeast, or in rural communities across the Midwest.2021 February 8, Emily Badger, “West Virginia Has Everyone’s Attention. What Does It Really Need?”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 18 Apr 2021
Synonyms:

Middle West
A town in Natrona County, Wyoming, United States.

alternative form	midwest

From mid- + West.

What does midwest mean?: Midwest means the area of the contiguous United States contained in the central third of the country, especially the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas, sometimes inclusive of Missouri and Kentucky.
What is midwest the alternative spelling of?: Midwest is the alternative spelling of Midwest.
What part of speech is midwest?: Midwest is a proper noun.
How do you pronounce midwest?: Midwest is pronounced /mɪdˈwɛst/ (UK).

Adapted from Wiktionary: midwest (page history and authors); Midwest (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-Midwest.oga.

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