Also called middle plane. Also called middle ground. Fine Arts. the represented space between the foreground and background in paintings, drawings, etc.
(in track) a race distance ranging from 400 meters or 440 yards to 1 mile.
First recorded in 1805–15
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
To the left and right, a dense forest frames the scene, while farther off, in the middle distance, a few lonely plantations and houses can barely be made out.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
Often shown on-screen in the middle distance or the background, her expressions always muted, Nina drifts through this slow-burn crisis without any palpable urgency or alarm.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2025
Robbie Fitzgibbon, a middle distance runner, represented his country at several international events.
From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2024
“To see this entire world, do this literally: Mold the play into a medium-sized ball, set it before you in the middle distance, and squint your eyes,” she wrote.
From New York Times ● Jun. 18, 2024
His thin shirt has split at the seams and he gazes into some middle distance with hypothermic slackness.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Debertolis was taking part in the final of the men's middle-distance event, which took place in temperatures above 30 degrees, when he collapsed.
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2025
Gjert had no background in athletics, but the former logistics manager poured himself into constructing a gruelling high-mileage programme to turn his seven children into a family band of elite middle-distance contenders.
From BBC ● Jun. 16, 2025
This generation of milers is also supremely talented, of course, forming a new golden age of middle-distance running.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 2025
In fact, several forces that were at work when Nuguse and Ingebrigtsen raced have been electrifying all of middle-distance running.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 2025
These figures must be in the foreground, and the rest in the middle-distance or in the back-ground.
From The Author's Craft by Bennett, Arnold
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.
