medieval

UK/ˌmɛd.iˈiː.vəl/US/mɪdˈi.vəl/

adjectiveC12 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #4,866 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: mediaeval

Medieval means belonging to the Middle Ages — very roughly the thousand years between the fall of Rome and about 1500. Castles, monks, plague, and no anaesthetic.

Used of the present day it is always an insult: medieval conditions, a medieval attitude to women. That is worth knowing before you use it about anything modern. The American spelling drops the first e in some styles, and you will meet mediaeval in older British books; all three are the same word.

Definitions of medieval

1adjectivemedievalBelonging to the Middle Ages, roughly 500 to 1500.C1~98%
“The town still has its medieval walls.”
synonyms: mediaeval
2adjectivecruelCruel or hopelessly old-fashioned.C2~2%
“The prison was in a medieval state.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 187 sentences found in the wild and placed 185 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Remember it

medi-EVAL → sounds like EVIL

A century that sounds evil when you say it out loud: plague in the villages, a knight at the door, and no doctor within fifty miles.

hooks ontoevil

Where it comes from

Latin medium, middle, and aevum, an age. It is the middle age, said in Latin — and the Middle Ages did not know they were in the middle of anything.

Proto-Indo-European
*h₂ey-
French
médiéval — medieval
English, today
medieval

From French médiéval (“medieval”), from Latin - medium + aevum.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in History & Eras

Practise this word

medieval in the wild

Early Modernity is a single term adopted to describe this end-stage of the period, during which medieval Europe shades into the modern period.
Middle Ages
Following the traditional division of the Middle Ages, medieval music can be divided into Early, High, and Late medieval music.
Medieval music
Much medieval music is purely vocal music, such as Gregorian chant.
Medieval music
The dynastic name, medieval Latin Merovingi or Merohingii ("sons of Merovech").
Merovingian dynasty
A medieval university was a corporation organized during the Middle Ages for the purposes of higher education.
Medieval university

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Definitions of medieval

1adjectivemedievalBelonging to the Middle Ages, roughly 500 to 1500.C1~98%

“The town still has its medieval walls.”

synonyms: mediaeval

2adjectivecruelCruel or hopelessly old-fashioned.C2~2%

“The prison was in a medieval state.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 187 sentences found in the wild and placed 185 of them on a sense (2 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.