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MEDIOCRITY
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Dictionary entry overview: What does mediocrity mean?
• MEDIOCRITY (noun)
The noun MEDIOCRITY has 2 senses:
1. ordinariness as a consequence of being average and not outstanding
2. a person of second-rate ability or value
Familiarity information: MEDIOCRITY used as a noun is rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Ordinariness as a consequence of being average and not outstanding
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Synonyms:
averageness; mediocrity
Hypernyms ("mediocrity" is a kind of...):
mundaneness; mundanity; ordinariness (the quality of being commonplace and ordinary)
Derivation:
mediocre (lacking exceptional quality or ability)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A person of second-rate ability or value
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Synonyms:
mediocrity; second-rater
Context example:
shone among the mediocrities who surrounded him
Hypernyms ("mediocrity" is a kind of...):
individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)
Derivation:
mediocre (poor to middling in quality)
mediocre (moderate to inferior in quality)
Context examples
But even his earliest efforts were not marked with the clumsiness of mediocrity.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
You will take in the whole of the past, you will consider times, persons, and probabilities, and you will feel that they were not least your friends who were educating and preparing you for that mediocrity of condition which seemed to be your lot. Though their caution may prove eventually unnecessary, it was kindly meant; and of this you may be assured, that every advantage of affluence will be doubled by the little privations and restrictions that may have been imposed.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
His attentions to Miss King were now the consequence of views solely and hatefully mercenary; and the mediocrity of her fortune proved no longer the moderation of his wishes, but his eagerness to grasp at anything.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
He was unaware of her gaze, and she watched him intently, speculating fancifully about the strange warp of soul that led him, a young man with signal powers, to fritter away his time on the writing of stories and poems foredoomed to mediocrity and failure.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
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