middling
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈmɪdlɪŋ/
ipa: /ˈmɪdl̩ɪŋ/
ipa: /ˈmɪd(ə)lɪŋ/
Forms: form: more middling
form: most middling
Etymology: The noun is probably from middle (noun) + -ing; the adjective is most likely derived from the noun, and the adverb from the adjective.
Senses: examples: text: The football team is never the worst or best in its league; its position is always middling.
text: […] 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.
ref: 1700 February, Thomas Molyneux, “II. An Essay Concerning Giants. Occasioned by Some Further Remarks on the Large Humane Os Frontis, or Forehead-bone, Mentioned in the Philosophical Transactions of February 168⁴₅, Number 168.”, in Philosophical Transactions. Giving Some Account of the Present Undertakings, Studies and Labours of the Ingenious, in Many Considerable Parts of the World, volume XXII, number 261, London: Printed by S. Smith and B. Walford, printers to the Royal Society, at the Prince's Arms in St. Paul's Church-yard, published 1702, →OCLC, page 501:
text: 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.
ref: 1783 July, “Foreign Literature. France. Art. XIV.”, in [Ralph Griffiths], editor, The Monthly Review; Or, Literary Journal, volume LXIX, London: Printed for R[alph] Griffiths; and sold by T[homas] Becket, No. 82, Pall Mall, →OCLC, page 61:
text: 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.
ref: 1853 January 1, “Parallel Passages”, in E[liakim] Littell, editor, Littell’s Living Age, volume XXXVI, number 450, Boston, Mass.: E. Littell & Son, →OCLC, page 29, column 2:
text: 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.
ref: 1946, V[ictor] S[awdon] Pritchett, “Clarissa”, in The Living Novel, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC; republished New York, N.Y.: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1947, →OCLC, page 24:
text: Rather, [Thomas] Holcroft uses his experiences as fooder while claiming the status of an "author" just as more middling writers did.
ref: 2012, Miriam L. Wallace, A. A. Markley, “Introduction”, in Miriam L. Wallane, A. A. Markley, editors, Re-viewing Thomas Holcroft, 1745–1809: Essays on His Works and Life (British Literature in Context in the Long Eighteenth Century), Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, →ISBN; republished Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2016, →ISBN, page 5:
text: 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.
ref: 2012 July 12, Sam Adams, “Ice Age: Continental Drift”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 25 Mar 2014:
glosses: Of intermediate or average size, position, or quality; mediocre.
examples: text: I am in a middling Way, between Healthy and Sick, hardly ever without a little Giddineſs or Deafneſs, and ſometimes both: So much for that.
ref: 1728 September 18, [Jonathan] Swift, “[Letters on Several Occasions.] Letter XXIII. To the Same [Dr. Thomas Sheridan].”, in Miscellanies, 4th edition, volume XIII, London: Printed for R[obert] Dodsley in Pall-mall, published 1751, →OCLC, page 125:
text: “And how’s that chest of yours?” demanded Mrs. Morel. / He smiled again, with his blue eyes rather sunny. / “Oh, it’s very middlin’,” he said.
ref: 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “Strife in Love”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC, part II, page 200:
glosses: In fairly good health.
Synonyms: sense: intermediate or average in size, position, or quality
word: average
sense: intermediate or average in size, position, or quality
word: medium
sense: intermediate or average in size, position, or quality
word: unexceptional
Derived terms: fair to middling
middlingish
middlingly
middlingness
middlings
middling sort