Word Study
HYPHEN
WORDNET DICTIONARY
CIDE DICTIONARY
OXFORD DICTIONARY
THESAURUS
ROGET THESAURUS
middling
WORDNET DICTIONARY
Noun middling has 1 sense
- middling(n = noun.artifact) Array - any commodity of intermediate quality or size (especially when coarse particles of ground wheat are mixed with bran); Array is a kind of commodity, good, trade good
Adjective middling has 1 sense
- middling(s = adj.all) average, fair, mediocre - lacking exceptional quality or ability; "a novel of average merit"; "only a fair performance of the sonata"; "in fair health"; "the caliber of the students has gone from mediocre to above average"; "the performance was middling at best"
Adverbial middling has 1 sense
- middling(r = adv.all) fairly, jolly, moderately, passably, pretty, reasonably, somewhat - to a moderately sufficient extent or degree; "pretty big"; "pretty bad"; "jolly decent of him"; "the shoes are priced reasonably"; "he is fairly clever with computers"
CIDE DICTIONARY
middling, a.
Of middle rank, state, size, or quality; about equally distant from the extremes; medium; moderate; mediocre; ordinary. Hallam. [1913 Webster]
"Plainly furnished, as beseemed the middling circumstances of its inhabitants."
[1913 Webster]
OXFORD DICTIONARY
middling, adj., n., & adv.
--adj.
1 a moderately good (esp. fair to middling). b colloq. (of a person's health) fairly well. c second-rate.
2 (of goods) of the second of three grades.
--n. (in pl.) middling goods, esp. flour of medium fineness.
--adv. fairly or moderately (middling good).
--adj.
1 a moderately good (esp. fair to middling). b colloq. (of a person's health) fairly well. c second-rate.
2 (of goods) of the second of three grades.
--n. (in pl.) middling goods, esp. flour of medium fineness.
--adv. fairly or moderately (middling good).
Derivative
middlingly adv.
Etymology
ME, of Sc. orig.: prob. f. MID(1) + -LING(2)
THESAURUS
middling
amidships, average, banal, betwixt and between, central, common, core, dull, equatorial, equidistant, fair, fair to middling, fairish, halfway, indifferent, inferior, insipid, interior, intermediary, intermediate, lackluster, mean, medial, median, mediocre, mediterranean, medium, mesial, mezzo, mid, middle, middle-of-the-road, middlemost, midland, midmost, midships, midway, moderate, modest, namby-pamby, normal, nuclear, of a kind, of a sort, of sorts, ordinary, passable, poor, respectable, routine, second-rate, so-so, standard, tedious, tolerable, usual, vapid, wishy-washyROGET THESAURUS
middling
Imperfection
N imperfection, imperfectness, deficiency, inadequacy, peccancy, immaturity, fault, defect, weak point, screw loose, flaw, gap, twist, taint, attainder, bar sinister, hole in one's coat, blemish, weakness, half blood, shortcoming, drawback, seamy side, mediocrity, no great shakes, no great catch, not much to boast of, one-horse shay, imperfect, not perfect, deficient, defective, faulty, unsound, tainted, out of order, out of tune, cracked, leaky, sprung, warped, lame, injured, peccant, frail, inadequate, crude, incomplete, found wanting, below par, short-handed, below its full strength, under its full strength, below its full complement, indifferent, middling, ordinary, mediocre, average, so-so, coucicouci, milk and water, tolerable, fair, passable, pretty well, pretty good, rather good, moderately good, good, good enough, well enough, adequate, decent, not bad, not amiss, inobjectionable, unobjectionable, admissible, bearable, only better than nothing, secondary, inferior, second-rate, second-best, one-horse, almost, to a limited extent, rather, pretty, moderately, passing, only, considering, all things considered, enough, surgit amari aliquid.Smallness
N smallness, littleness, tenuity, paucity, fewness, meanness, insignificance (unimportance), mediocrity, moderation, small quantity, modicum, trace, hint, minimum, vanishing point, material point, atom, particle, molecule, corpuscle, point, speck, dot, mote, jot, iota, ace, minutiae, details, look, thought, idea, soupcon, dab, dight, whit, tittle, shade, shadow, spark, scintilla, gleam, touch, cast, grain, scruple, granule, globule, minim, sup, sip, sop, spice, drop, droplet, sprinkling, dash, morceau, screed, smack, tinge, tincture, inch, patch, scantling, tatter, cantlet, flitter, gobbet, mite, bit, morsel, crumb, seed, fritter, shive, snip, snippet, snick, snack, snatch, slip, scrag, chip, chipping, shiver, sliver, driblet, clipping, paring, shaving, hair, nutshell, thimbleful, spoonful, handful, capful, mouthful, fragment, fraction, drop in the ocean, animalcule, trifle, mere nothing, next to nothing, hardly anything, just enough to swear by, the shadow of a shade, finiteness, finite quantity, small, little, diminutive, minute, fine, inconsiderable, paltry, faint, slender, light, slight, scanty, scant, limited, meager, sparing, few, low, so-so, middling, tolerable, no great shakes, below par, under par, below the mark, at a low ebb, halfway, moderate, modest, tender, subtle, inappreciable, evanescent, infinitesimal, homeopathic, very small, atomic, corpuscular, microscopic, molecular, subatomic, mere, simple, sheer, stark, bare, near run, dull, petty, shallow, stolid, ungifted, unintelligent, to a small extent, on a small scale, a little bit, a wee bit, slightly, imperceptibly, miserably, wretchedly, insufficiently, imperfectly, faintly, passably, pretty well, well enough, partially, in part, in a certain degree, to a certain degree, to a certain extent, comparatively, some, rather in some degree, in some measure, something, somewhat, simply, only, purely, merely, at least, at the least, at most, at the most, ever so little, as little as may be, tant soit peu, in ever so small a degree, thus far, pro tanto, within bounds, in a manner, after a fashion, so to speak, almost, nearly, well-nigh, short of, not quite, all but, near upon, close upon, peu s'en faut, near the mark, within an ace of, within an inch of, on the brink of, scarcely, hardly, barely, only just, no more than, about, thereabouts, somewhere about, nearly, say, be the same, be little more or less, no ways, no way, no wise, not at all, not in the least, not a bit, not a bit of it, not a whit, not a jot, not a shadow, in no wise, in no respect, by no means, by no manner of means, on no account, at no hand, dare pondus idonea fumo, magno conatu magnas nugas, small sands the mountain, moments make the year.
For further exploring for "middling" in Webster Dictionary Online