middle distance


noun
  1. Also called middle ground, middle plane. Fine Arts. the represented space between the foreground and background in paintings, drawings, etc.

  2. (in track) a race distance ranging from 400 meters or 440 yards to 1 mile.

Origin of middle distance

1
First recorded in 1805–15

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use middle distance in a sentence

  • Such warm skies and cold middle distances and foregrounds are too antagonistic for the harmony of nature.

  • In landscapes it is used in skies and the middle distances, but not in the foreground, unless mixed with yellow.

    Crayon Portraiture | Jerome A. Barhydt
  • In landscapes a little can be used in the skies, the middle distances, and lights on the ground in the foreground.

    Crayon Portraiture | Jerome A. Barhydt
  • It was the one small lapse from the strict conventionalities, but it sufficed to cut out all the middle distances.

    The Price | Francis Lynde
  • His middle distances are good.intricacy even in the best works of the old masters.

British Dictionary definitions for middle-distance

middle-distance

adjective
  1. athletics relating to or denoting races of a length between the sprints and the distance events, esp the 800 metres and the 1500 metres

nounmiddle distance
  1. Also called: middle ground part of a painting, esp a landscape between the foreground and far distance

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012