Dictionary

fair to middling en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (General-American) audio

Etymology

From the practice of classifying agricultural commodities as fair or middling. The earliest attested instance of these descriptions being combined into the phrase fair to middling was in a British publication of 1822 but the first instance of this usage being generalised is from an American publication of 1837

Meanings

1. (idiomatic, not-comparable, qualifier:usually hyphenated when placed before noun) Only tolerably good; somewhat favorable.
   • For the next five months, Knicks fans will have to watch a collection of underachievers, inexperienced players and fair-to-middling pros attempt to be respectable. 2009 November 20, William C. Rhoden, “Sports of The Times: Iverson Isn’t the Answer for Knicks”, in New York Times, retrieved 20 Dec 2011:
   • "O'er Waiting Harpstrings of the Mind" is pretty good, quite fair to middling—the whole seven of the stanzas—but repetition would be certain to take the excitement out of it in the course of time. 1907, Mark Twain, chapter 7, in Christian Science:
   • Not a heluva good one, but fair to middlin’. 1911, Peter B. Kyne, chapter 29, in Captain Scraggs or The Green-Pea Pirates:

Forms

Synonyms

adequate · tolerable · OK