Middling

/ˈmɪdlɪŋ/ · adjective

Meaning

Of intermediate or average size, position, or quality; mediocre..

Definitions by Sense

1. Of intermediate or average size, position, or quality; mediocre.
2. (colloquial, regional British) In fairly good health.
3. (colloquial, regional British) Fairly, moderately, somewhat.
4. (colloquial, regional British) Not too badly, with modest success.
5. Something of intermediate or average size, position, or quality.

Example Sentences

The football team is never the worst or best in its league; its position is always middling.

[…] I cannot think it unreaſonable, […] to imagin the ſame natural cauſes may ſometimes act in t'other extreme likewiſe, and model Humane Bodies from a peculiar Energy in the ſeminal Principles, or a more perfect and through concoction in the Stomach, and other Viſcera, whence may proceed a peculiar and extraordinary nutritive faculty in the humours, for the furthering augmentation; or ſtill from ſome other more latent Spring, or ſecret Influence, to ariſe to ſuch a growth as fully to equal twice the heighth of (what we may then properly call) a middling ſtature, taking the word in the moſt ſtrict ſenſe.

Had it [De le Maniere d'écrire l'Histoire (Concerning the Manner of Writing History, 1783) by Gabriel Bonnot de Mably] appeared ſooner, and been peruſed by with docility by ſome of our minor adventurers in this walk of literature, it might have had a good effect, by ſhewing them, that it is not ſo eaſy a matter as they think to write hiſtory, though the moſt middling genius may fling facts, dawb characters, and copy tales and truths promiſcuouſly.

All this is undoubtedly compatible with mediocrity, like every other profession; one can also be a middling poet, a middling orator, a middling author; but this done with genius is sublime.

Yet there he [Samuel Richardson] is, plump, prosaic, the most middling of middling men, and so domestically fussy that even his gift of weeping hardly guarantees that he will be a major figure.

Rather, [Thomas] Holcroft uses his experiences as fooder while claiming the status of an "author" just as more middling writers did.

The matter of whether the world needs a fourth Ice Age movie pales beside the question of why there were three before it, but [Ice Age:] Continental Drift feels less like an extension of a theatrical franchise than an episode of a middling TV cartoon, lolling around on territory that's already been settled.

Despite its middling record, [Sam] Altman would also emerge from Loopt much better off than he’d started.

Synonyms for middling

Antonyms for middling

Related Words

Word Forms

• more middling
• most middling
• middlings

Usage Notes

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