moiety

moiety \MOI-i-tee\, noun:

1. a half.
2. an indefinite portion, part, or share.
3. Anthropology. one of two units into which a tribe or community is divided on the basis of unilineal descent.

Tom divided the cake and Becky ate with good appetite, while Tom nibbled at his moiety.
-- Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1876

Poor Federigo, although his necessity was extreme and his grief great, remembering his former inordinate expenses, a moietywhereof would now have stood him in some stead, yet he had a heart as free and forward as ever, not a jot dejected in his mind, though utterly overthrown by fortune.
-- Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), "The Falcon," Little Masterpieces of Fiction, 1905

Moiety comes from Old French meitiet, from Late Latin medietas, from Latin medius, "middle."