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Definition of "midden" [mid•den]

  • A dunghill or refuse heap. (noun)
  • Archaeology A mound or deposit containing shells, animal bones, and other refuse that indicates the site of a human settlement. Also called kitchen midden. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "midden" in a sentence
  • "Molecular analysis of a 11,700 year-old rodent midden from the Atacama Desert, Chile."
  • "And they're basing it on comparison with things like modern octopuses, which are known to create what are known as midden piles, but there's a bit of an extrapolation."
  • "Imagine a kitchen-midden, that is to say the detritus of ordinary living in different ages, accumulated along the side of some ancient water course, having for its dimensions miles in length, extending hundreds of yards back from the margin of this creek, of tens and tens of thousands of years ago, and having a depth of often many feet along this water course."