midden
Americannoun
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archaic a dunghill or pile of refuse
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dialect a dustbin
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dialect an earth closet
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See kitchen midden
Etymology
Origin of midden
1300–50; Middle English midding < Old Danish mykdyngja, equivalent to myk manure + dyngja pile ( Danish mødding )
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.
At the next picnic table over, a little girl tipped an oyster back then dropped it on the ground—one more shell for the modern midden.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 29, 2026
The project overall is called the Super Midden, based on midden - a word mostly used by archaeologists to describe ancient rubbish dumps.
From BBC ● Jul. 16, 2025
Or take a sea kayak tour from Ganges out to Third Sister Island, where you’ll see a large Indigenous shell midden at Chocolate Beach.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 3, 2023
In August, Kumeyaay protesters in San Diego found midden soil, evidence of cremated remains of their ancestors, at a construction site.
From Slate ● Feb. 1, 2021
The cottage stinks like a midden — baby’s mess everywhere.
From "Good Masters! Sweet Ladies!: Voices from a Medieval Village" by Laura Amy Schlitz
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.
