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Synonyms

middle school

American  

noun

  1. a school intermediate between elementary school and high school, usually encompassing grades five or six through eight.

middle school British  

noun

  1. (in England and Wales) a school for children aged between 8 or 9 and 12 or 13 Compare first school

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of middle school

First recorded in 1830–40

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Middle school history teacher Pilar Cuevas, at Inglewood’s La Tijera Academy of Excellence, relies significantly on homework and blocks AI on school-issued computers.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 25, 2025

Middle school went on, and eventually she stopped messaging me and I stopped messaging her.

From Slate • Aug. 12, 2025

Middle school teacher Nick Akins, whose home is on a street that police locked down, described the neighborhood as a mostly great place to live, with a mix of homes, short-term rental apartments and churches.

From Washington Times • May 16, 2023

Middle school is always hard — and the pandemic made it worse.

From Washington Post • Dec. 30, 2022

“Don’t you wish you could go back in time and just shut it down? Like, hey. Middle school Alice: stop it. Stop everything you’re doing.”

From "Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda" by Becky Albertalli

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.