middling
Part of speech: adj
noun
Morphological type: derivation
Etymology: The noun is probably from middle (noun) + -ing; the adjective is most likely derived from the noun, and the adverb from the adjective.
Base: middle
Affixes: -ing
Inflected forms:
form: more middling
pos: adj
tags: comparative
form: most middling
pos: adj
tags: superlative
form: middlings
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: Of intermediate or average size, position, or quality; mediocre.
pos: adj
examples: 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.
gloss: In fairly good health.
pos: adj
tags: UK
colloquial
regional
examples: 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.
“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.
gloss: Something of intermediate or average size, position, or quality.
pos: noun
examples: Middlings are less likely to adopt worker commitment than are Leaders, but the two groups are equally likely to adopt organisational responsibility. […] Middlings have not been able to effectively implement innovative environmental programmes and proactive social programmes.
gloss: Something of intermediate or average size, position, or quality.
pos: noun
tags: in-plural
examples: The war had been significantly financed by the poor and the middling, who purchased bonds that quickly devalued from wartime inflation; debt speculators had bought much of this debt at a fraction of the original cost.
Derived words: fair to middling
middlingish
middlingly
middlingness
middlings
middling sort
Translations: