/ðə ˈmɪdl̩ əv ˈnəʊwɛə/
English idiom, informal. A very remote place, far from towns and people.
Draft Not yet checked by a native English speaker.
How do people use The middle of nowhere
?
Informal, often a bit fed up or amused: “we live in the middle of nowhere.” It almost always comes with “in the” and stays singular. You can use it about a real map location or just about somewhere with no shops, no bus and no phone signal.
The middle of nowhere
in real sentences
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We live in the middle of nowhere.
Tatoeba, sentence by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
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Tom is in the middle of nowhere.
Tatoeba, sentence by CK, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does The middle of nowhere
come from?
Nobody is credited with it. The oldest example English Wiktionary gives is an 1889 editorial in The Daily Record of Kansas that wanted a corrupt ring “knocked into the middle of Nowhere”, with Nowhere capitalized as if it were a place name. The joke is in the logic: you can’t stand in the middle of a place that doesn’t exist.
Mistakes learners make with The middle of nowhere
Dropping “the”. “We live in middle of nowhere” sounds broken; English Wiktionary notes it’s almost always “the middle of nowhere”.
Other English idioms like The middle of nowhere
Spot a mistake in The middle of nowhere
?
Send a correction, or a sentence you’d actually say with it. Everything is read before anything on this page changes.