Sunday Word: In medias res

[sallymn]

in medias res [in mey-dee-ahs reys]

adjective:
in the middle of things; in or into the middle of a narrative or plot

Examples:

Given Sonic’s frozen-in-time quality, perhaps it’s fitting that his eponymous feature film begins with the hoariest of fourth-wall-breaking story clichés: a record-scratch freeze-frame on Sonic, in medias res, as he says in voice-over, 'I bet you’re wondering how I got here.' (David Sims, Sonic the Hedgehog Is No Longer Terrifying, The Atlantic, February 2020)

Like the Christopher Nolan film Memento, it begins in media res, and slowly unspools narratively backwards. And, like a classic film noir plot, it is the story of a person framed for a crime they didn’t commit. (Naaman Zhou, 'You stole my cheese!': the seven best Post-it note wars, The Guardian, May 2019)

Given Sonic’s frozen-in-time quality, perhaps it’s fitting that his eponymous feature film begins with the hoariest of fourth-wall-breaking story clichés: a record-scratch freeze-frame on Sonic, in medias res, as he says in voice-over, 'I bet you’re wondering how I got here.' (David Sims, Sonic the Hedgehog Is No Longer Terrifying, The Atlantic, February 2020)

The Homeric epic opens in medias res, already in the 10th year of the Trojan War, and it draws toward its suspenseful close with one of the most brilliant and counterintuitive epi­sodes in all of ancient literature, Priam’s stupendously dangerous journey to the heart of the Greek camp to ransom the corpse of his son Hector from the Trojans’ implacable enemy, Achilles. (Steve Coates, Troy Story, The New York Times, January 2010)

Nineties drama juggernaut ER eventually fell in love with the idea of starting episodes in the middle of a story (aka in medias res) and then going back several hours to illustrate how one of the heroic docs got into that sticky situation. (Alan Sepinwall, Let’s Not Do the Time Warp Again, Rolling Stone, March 2021)

Origin:

Latin, literally 'in the midst of things,' from medias, accusative fem plural of medius 'middle' (see medial) + accusative plural of res 'a thing' (Online Etymology Dictionary)

In medias res, 'in the middle of things', is a borrowing of Latin in mediās rēs, literally meaning 'into middle things.' Latin in is a distant relative of English in and can mean either 'into' or 'in, on,' depending on context. Mediās is a form of medius, 'middle', which is also the source of medieval, medium, and mezzaluna. Rēs is the same in its singular and plural forms; compare the Latin-origin words caries, rabies, series, and species. In medias res was first recorded in English in the 1780s. (Dictionary.com)