middle school

American  

noun

• middle schools
  plural

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

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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

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• middle schools
  plural

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Etymology

Origin of middle school

First recorded in 1830–40

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

middle school

Felicidade Alves dos Santos Martins, whose daughter Febrianti was home from middle school, said the pollution had been even worse earlier in the week.

From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026

The ninth-grade student was detained "immediately" after the incident at Lakanal middle school, Aubagne Mayor Jean-Pierre Squillari said.

From BBC ● Oct. 12, 2026

We wrote that we would serve middle school students and listed our first day as TBD.

From Salon ● Oct. 4, 2026

Its intellectual leader was Eliezer Yudkowsky, a Bay Area autodidact who dropped out of middle school.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 27, 2026

I was so worried about Mom, and sad about losing Nan, that I didn’t know who I wanted to be in middle school.

From "A Place at the Table" by Saadia Faruqi and Laura Shovan

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Related Words

• junior high
• secondary school

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