middlingnessn.
/ˈmɪdl̩ɪŋnᵻs/, /ˈmɪdlɪŋnᵻs/, U.S. /ˈmɪd(ə)lɪŋnᵻs/ The state of being middling; mediocrity.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > goodness and badness > quality of being good > mediocrity > [noun]
mediocrity1588
indifferency1608
indifference1690
indifferentness1727
betweenity1760
commonness1779
passableness1779
flavourlessness1865
middlingness1866
normalcy1893
passable1908
1866 ‘G. Eliot’ Felix Holt I. v. 105 'Tis a poor climax, to my weaker thought, That future middlingness.
1929 D. H. Lawrence Pansies 120 Nothing that transcends the bourgeois middlingness.
1957 Ess. in Crit. 7 216 The umbrella of ‘moderation’..means too frequently that middlingness, lack of real poetic talent and ambition has found yet another cosy corner for itself in our watered-down, democratic culture.
1989 ELH 56 604 What low and high have in common, in this symbolic drama, is both ambition and a lack of honesty—precisely the linked moral and social qualities that middlingness excludes.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1866