fourth-rate establishment
- noun
- US
:
establecimiento de cuarta categoría
- He complained that the hotel was just a fourth-rate establishment with grimy rooms and rude staff.
Examples
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Despite its promising location, the shop became known as a fourth-rate establishment and quickly lost customers.
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I would never eat at that fourth-rate establishment again.
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Avoiding a fourth-rate establishment is wise if you value service and cleanliness.
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That fourth-rate establishment is terrible!
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Avoiding a fourth-rate establishment is wise if you value service and cleanliness.
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Despite its promising location, the shop became known as a fourth-rate establishment and quickly lost customers.
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He complained that the hotel was just a fourth-rate establishment with grimy rooms and rude staff.
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'fourth-rate' (of low quality) modifies 'establishment' (a business/place), so a learner who knows both words can readily infer a low-quality business. This adjective+noun pattern is regular and cross-linguistically common, making the phrase immediately comprehensible to a B1 learner.
Etymology
The phrase fourth-rate establishment comes from an old way of labeling quality: people used words like first-rate, second-rate, and fourth-rate to show how good something was. So, calling a shop or hotel a fourth-rate establishment means it is 'very low quality' or 'not good'.