Kilo Lingo

Line drawing of mezepoko
Coloured illustration of mezepoko
#2279 of 5,000 Core 5000

Translation

the Middle Ages

Word origin

An Esperanto compound of mezo, the middle, and epoko, an age. It calques the Latin medium aevum, which gives English Middle Ages, French Moyen Age and German Mittelalter alike.

Origin
Esperanto compound
Root
mezo + epoko
English cognates
medieval, epoch

Examples

.

In the Middle Ages they built many castles.

.

That book comes from the Middle Ages.

.

The Middle Ages lasted almost a thousand years.

Both halves already have pages. Mezo is the middle and epoko is an age or era, so is the middle age, and it means what English means by the Middle Ages. Note that Esperanto keeps it singular where English pluralises; is one long stretch of time, not a set of them.

Every European language did the same . Medium aevum in Latin, Moyen Age in French, Mittelalter in German, Edad Media in Spanish. Esperanto is not being clever here, it is being ordinary, and that is rather the point: a word built from and needs no glossary entry for a speaker of any of those languages.

Writing it. The adjective is mezepoka, medieval. Period names are often capitalised in Esperanto when they name one specific era, so and are both current; usage has not settled and neither will get you into trouble. o is a medievalist.

Its neighbours in time. o is antiquity, Renesanco the Renaissance, jarcento a century, and jarmilo a millennium. The furniture of the period is here too: kastelo a castle, kavaliro a knight, monaĥo a monk.

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Esperanto · Free printables

mezepoko: worksheet, infographic and listicle

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This word is part of lesson 46.