In Laravel, middleware acts as a bridge or a filter between a request and a response. It provides a convenient mechanism for filtering HTTP requests that enter your application. Middleware in Laravel operates in a pipeline, where each middleware in the pipeline handles the request before passing it on to the next middleware or the final request handler.

Middleware can be used for tasks such as authentication, logging, session management, CORS handling, CSRF protection, and more. Laravel ships with several built-in middleware for handling these common scenarios.

Middleware in Laravel is a powerful mechanism for preprocessing both incoming requests and outgoing responses. It helps you enforce rules, modify data, or perform actions based on specific conditions before and after the request-handling process. This abstraction simplifies the organization and management of request lifecycle logic in your application.