Esperanto

Verb

vidus

1. conditional of vidi

Ido

Verb

vidus

1. conditional of vidar

Latvian

Etymology

From Proto-Baltic *widu-, from Proto-Indo-European *widʰu- ‎(“forest, wood”). The semantic change from “forest” to “region, area (between villages)” and to “middle, between” probably comes from a situation in which the areas between villages are mostly occupied by forest (cf. the opposite change, from “middle” to “forest,” in Latvian mežs; these two words, mežs and vidus apparently swapped their meanings). Cognates include Lithuanian vidùs ‎(“interior, middle”), Old Prussian widus ‎(“boot stitch”); in the original sense of “forest,” also Old Irish fid ‎(“wood, firewood, forest”), Old Norse viðr ‎(“forest, bushes; tree, stump, log, mast; (adj.) far, wide, big”), Old High German witu, wito ‎(“firewood, wood”), Old English widu, wudu ‎(“forest, bushes, tree”), English wood.^[1]

Noun

vidus m (3rd declension)

1. middle, center (place situated at approximately the same distance from the edges, sides, extremities (of something))

   ezera, meža, dārza vidus‎

   the middle of the lake, forest, garden

   pagalma vidus‎

   the middle of the backyard

   vidus dialekts‎

   the middle dialect (on which Standard Latvian is based)

   braukt pa ceļa vidu‎

   to ride by the middle of the road

   nolikt svečturi galda vidū‎

   to drop the candlestick in the middle of the table

   sākt šķirstīt žurnālu no vidus‎

   to start leafing through the magazine from the middle

   jūras vidū mēs šūpojamies, Nāves medībām izbēgušie‎

   we were rocking in the middle of the sea, having escaped Death's hunt

2. (of time periods) middle (moment or period separated from the beginning and the end (of some process) by similarly long time intervals)

   nakts vidus‎

   the middle of the night

   ziemas vidus‎

   the middle of winter

   spēles, izrādes vidus‎

   the middle of the game, of the show

   karsto dienas vidu visi zirgi pavadīja krūmos, bet arī te nebija miera no mušām‎

   all horses spent the middle of a hot day in the bushes, but also (= even) there there was no peace from the flies

   tuvojās oktobra vidus, un bija jāsāk domāt par ziemas mītni‎

   the middle of october was approaching, and one had to start thinking about winter quarters

3. middle (the inside, the internal part (of something))

   vecmāmiņa ar īpašu nazīti izgreiza āboliem vidus un piebrēa tos ar cukuru un kanēli‎

   grandma cut the middles of the apples with a special knife and poured sugar and cinnamon on them

   tur agrāk vējš locīja vecu, līku vītolu ar izpuvušu vidu‎

   there, before, the wind would bned an old, crooked willow with a rotten middle

4. (in the locative after a genitive noun, used prepositionally) in the middle of, in the midst of, amid, among

   draugu vidū‎

   among friends

   kad Zelma bija mūsu vidū,...‎

   when Zelma was among us, in our midst,...

   strādnieku vidū jau droši vien klīst visnegudrākās baumas‎

   among workers run probably the most nonsensical rumors

   ieguvām vairāk nekā 5000 senlietu; to vidū ir unikāls zobens‎

   we obtained more than 5000 artifacts; among them there is a unique sword

5. (of the body) middle, waist

   Emma klusēdama aplika roku ap Kristīnes vidu‎

   Emma silently put (her) hand (= arm) around Kristīnes waist

   viņš gāja vēl; zāle sniedzās līdz vidum‎

   he went further; the grass reached till (his body's) middle, waist

   tik daudz Ēriks nebija radis strādāt, tādēļ reizēm viņam iesāpējās vidus‎

   Ēriks was not used to working so much, so sometimes his middle, waist would begin to hurt

6. (dated sense, now usually apvidus) region, area

   aizgāja uz citu vidu dzīvot‎

   he went to live in another region, area

   Rozenberģis vēl ciemošoties divas nedēļas šai vidū‎

   Rozenberģis supposedly stayed for two weeks as a visitor in that region

Declension

Synonyms

• (of "middle, center"): centrs
• (of "among, amid"): starp
• (of "waist"): viduklis
• (of "region, area"): apkārtne, apgabals, apvidus, novads

Derived terms

compounds:

References

1. ↑ Karulis, Konstantīns (1992), “vidus”, in Latviešu Etimoloģijas Vārdnīca (in Latvian), Rīga: AVOTS, ISBN 9984-700-12-7