English Dictionary |
MIDDLING
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Dictionary entry overview: What does middling mean?
• MIDDLING (noun)
The noun MIDDLING has 1 sense:
1. any commodity of intermediate quality or size (especially when coarse particles of ground wheat are mixed with bran)
Familiarity information: MIDDLING used as a noun is very rare.
• MIDDLING (adjective)
The adjective MIDDLING has 1 sense:
1. lacking exceptional quality or ability
Familiarity information: MIDDLING used as an adjective is very rare.
• MIDDLING (adverb)
The adverb MIDDLING has 1 sense:
1. to certain extent or degree
Familiarity information: MIDDLING used as an adverb is very rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Any commodity of intermediate quality or size (especially when coarse particles of ground wheat are mixed with bran)
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("middling" is a kind of...):
commodity; good; trade good (articles of commerce)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Lacking exceptional quality or ability
Synonyms:
average; fair; mediocre; middling
Context example:
the performance was middling at best
Similar:
ordinary (not exceptional in any way especially in quality or ability or size or degree)
Sense 1
Meaning:
To certain extent or degree
Synonyms:
fairly; jolly; middling; moderately; passably; pretty; reasonably; somewhat
Context example:
he is fairly clever with computers
Context examples
Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
You must know it to be so; and the general made such a point of your providing nothing extraordinary: besides, if he had not said half so much as he did, he has always such an excellent dinner at home, that sitting down to a middling one for one day could not signify.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
He was a stout young man of middling height, who, with a plain face and ungraceful form, seemed fearful of being too handsome unless he wore the dress of a groom, and too much like a gentleman unless he were easy where he ought to be civil, and impudent where he might be allowed to be easy.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
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