fair to middling
1
6.9
- idiom
- Archaic
:
regular
- Fair to middling, captain.
- doing fair to middling
Examples
-
Oh, there had been a few fair-to-middling days thrown in during that twelve-month period, but for the most part, they had been bad.
Fiction book (2002) -
I'm fair to middling with this thing.
Fiction book (1994) -
Oh, you know, fair to middling.
-
- Oh, fair to middling.
-
2012 was a fair-to-middling dating year for your girl.
Blog text (27) -
"Oh, I'm fair to middling," Aunt Amanda said, turning to us.
Fiction book (1993) -
And yes, there's a fair to middling chance that it could happen to all of mankind in the next few centuries.
Blog text (3) -
I'm fair to middling.
-
Right now, these are the facts of my life: I am an associate professor at a fair-to-middling university, still clawing my way to an uncertain bid for tenure.
Fiction book (2002) -
The movie was fair to middling; it had some good moments but overall was just average.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Good enough but not very good
641
1.9
Not perfect but good for what you need
487
2.3
Good enough in quality to meet normal needs
274
1.0
Average in quality or amount, neither very good nor bad
234
2.7
Enough in amount or quality to meet a need
109
4.8
Only average in quality and not very good
81
2.3
Good enough to meet a need but not very good
31
3.5
Able to be put up with though not very good
21
3.0
Neither good nor bad
20
8.1
Average and not very impressive
8
4.4
Good enough but not very good
5
4.4
Only average and not very good
2
8.8
Not very good and showing little interest
1
4.6
Having average quality, neither very good nor very bad
Not very good or interesting
How Good
Surface Forms
Morphology
Both constituents 'fair' (neither very good nor very bad) and 'middling' (moderate, ordinary) directly convey average quality, and the connector 'to' simply links them as a range. This compositional pattern makes the overall meaning ('of average quality') predictable for a B1 learner who knows the individual words.
Etymology
Fair to middling comes from old market talk where sellers used simple quality names like fair, meaning 'okay', and middling, meaning 'middle quality'. Saying something was fair to middling painted the picture of a product between those two grades, so it now means 'average quality' or 'neither very good nor very bad'.