fourth-rate
1
6.6
- adjective
- /ˈfɔrθ reɪt/
- Offensive
:
de cuarta
- She took Alexi Ivanovich to the room she was renting by the week in a fourth-rate hotel.
- fourth-rate power
Examples
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And 12 out of 18 working hours every day my head's stuck up that raggedy-ass little fourth-rate country that doesn't even have the fight to save itself.
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Second, discount 2010 because Frank Bush could have turned Charles Woodson into a fourth-rate corner with all his coaching "wisdom."
Blog text (19) -
We should have creamed that fourth rate bunch of stumblers.
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Mr. Binner, the manager, brought in a good many fourth-rate speakers for them.
Fiction book (1990) -
Now I guess I am a third or fourth-rate citizen because I smoke and deny human-caused climate change.
Blog text (12) -
No, it's just a silly idea: Polkinghorne was a fourth-rate physicist who decided, correctly, that it was much easier for him to make a name for himself in theology than in physics.
Blog text (27) -
Recently, Lloyd Webber's music and the brilliant lyrics by Charles Hart and Richard Stilgoe turned a fourth-rate novel into an extraordinary musical, making Phantom the world's biggest grossing show of the century.
Academic text (2001) -
The hotel we stayed in was a fourth-rate establishment, with broken furniture and unclean rooms.
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Many people avoid that restaurant because it is known for its fourth-rate service and low-quality food.
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The movie received terrible reviews, with critics describing it as a fourth-rate production that lacked originality.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
Not good in quality or below the usual standard
176
7.5
Very bad or of low quality
109
4.8
Only average in quality and not very good
27
4.4
Not as good as the usual or required quality
23
4.4
Not as good as the best, often cheap or simple
21
3.0
Neither good nor bad
17
4.7
Of very low quality and not good enough
15
4.5
Not as good as people expect
11
4.4
Not very good and worth less than similar things
1
6.8
Very low quality and not good enough
It is of very low quality compared with similar things
Antonyms
How Poor
Surface Forms
Morphology
fourth-rate = fourth + rate (semi-transparent) = fourth + rate
Built from the ordinal 'fourth' + 'rate' (rank/quality), but the idiomatic meaning 'very poor' is not a literal numeric ranking and is conventionalized.
Etymology
Fourth-rate comes from old ways of ranking things, where rate meant 'rank' or 'quality' and first-rate described something excellent. So calling something fourth-rate gives the image of being down the list and therefore of poor or low quality.