[Meaning] middle. Also [sc. attested in the neuter] mesaitaton, [meaning] tall.
*mesai/tatos: o( me/sos. kai\ *mesai/taton, to\ u(yhlo/n.
These are both superlatives of the first glossing term
me/sos "middle".
The extension from "middlemost" to "high" comes from using "middlemost" to refer to hills in the middle of a plain, as in
Josephus,
Jewish Wars 2.511 ("that mountain which lies in the very middle of Galilee": web address 1), or structures tall in the middle, as in
Josephus,
Jewish Antiquities 15.393 ("but the middlemost [stone of the Temple] was much higher": web address 2).
Both words are also used in the
scholia to
Homer,
Odyssey 1.426, to gloss
periske/ptw| "conspicuous".
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