Middangeard is the Anglo-Saxon compound word meaning Middle-gard. The word middle needs little explaination, but gard simply means "realm", "enclosure" or simply an area with limits and a boundary. The germanic people refer to the word "gard" in many compounds. For example "Innangard" or "Utgard." These words mean within and without the inclosure of Germanic society, or within the realm of the people (whichever people 'tribe' one belonged too). Literally, In-gard and Out-gard. Today, the word gard is still used in every day words such as "kindergarten", i.e. "the realm of children." Also, "garden" means the enclosure of your personal property where one grows food for your family's consumption.

Middangeard is used in Germanic religious mythology to express the realm or "geard" in the middle of the many worlds of existance, the realm of man. There are other realms or gards in the Germanic cosmology. One very important one is "Asgard" or realm of the Gods. There are believed to be as many as nine worlds or gards.