Midterm, a definition of Evil Death.

Okay, the whole concept of a 'midterm' is starting to confuse me. Let's look at the word itself:
'mid-' is a prefix. it must be French for EVIL. Either that or implies 'middle' or 'median'
'-term' is a suffix. it is also French for DEATH. In English, however, a 'term' implies a period of time. like a semester.
So my question is, why are we taking our MIDTERMS now? We've been here for five weeks. Another interesting question is why there are more than one per class...
It must be French.