middling

1. 1.

   to certain extent or degree

   “pretty big”

   “pretty bad”

   “jolly decent of him”

   “the shoes are priced reasonably”

   “he is fairly clever with computers”

   Synonymsreasonablymoderatelyprettyjollysomewhatfairlypassably

Other forms of middling

plural

middlings·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about middling

What does middling mean?

middling means "any commodity of intermediate quality or size (especially when coarse particles of ground wheat are mixed with bran)". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in middling?

middling has 3 syllables, though it cannot be divided in writing — the spelling has fewer vowels than the word has beats. In IPA it is /ˈmɪdəlɪŋ/.

What is another word for middling?

Close synonyms include average, fair, mediocre, reasonably, moderately. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is middling a common word?

middling is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.