medial

Borrowed from Latin mediālis (“middle”), from medius (“that is in the middle or midst”) +‎ -ālis (“-al”, adjectival suffix).

• IPA^(key): /ˈmiː.di.əl/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːdiəl

medial (comparative more medial, superlative most medial)

2. (mathematics) Of or pertaining to a mean or average.

   medial allegation

3. Situated in or near the middle; not at either end.
   2. (anatomy, zootomy) Pertaining to the inside; closer to the median plane of the body or the midline of an organ.

      Coordinate terms: mesial, median

      Antonym: lateral

      The medial side of the knee faces the other knee, while the outer side of the knee is lateral.

      • 2013 February 6, Jen Christiensen, “Vonn’s injury ‘career-delayer,’ not ‘career ender’”, in CNN‎^[1]:

        Her anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) and medial collateral ligament (MCL) are torn and Vonn has a lateral fracture of the tibial plateau, the upper end of the tibia or shin bone.

   4. (anatomy) Pertaining to the middle layer of a blood vessel, to its tunica media.

      Mönckeberg medial sclerosis

   6. (entomology) Of or pertaining to the media and/or the areas of the wing next to it.
   8. (phonetics, linguistics) (of a speech sound, or a character or sequence thereof) In the middle of a word.
   10. (phonetics) (of a consonant) Central: produced when air flows across the center of the mouth over the tongue.
       • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:

         Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.

   12. (linguistics) Closer to the addressee.

• median
• mesial (see explanation of overlap)

medial (plural medials)

1. Any of various things that occur in the middle.
   1. One or more letters that occur in the middle of a word.

• “medial”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “medial”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

• Imelda, mailed, Deilam, Dameli, maelid

Borrowed from Latin medialis.

• IPA^(key): /medˈi̯aːl/

• Audio:

  (file)

medial (strong nominative masculine singular medialer, not comparable)

1. medial

Borrowed from French médial, from Latin medialis.

medial m or n (feminine singular medială, masculine plural mediali, feminine and neuter plural mediale)

1. medial

Borrowed from Latin mediālis. Cf. also meaja.

• IPA^(key): /meˈdjal/ [meˈð̞jal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: me‧dial

medial m or f (masculine and feminine plural mediales)

1. medial

• “medial”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024