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mediocrity
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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English
Etymology
From Middle French médiocrité, from Latin mediocritās, from mediocris; by surface analysis, mediocre + -ity.
Pronunciation
Noun
mediocrity (countable and uncountable, plural mediocrities)
- (uncountable) The condition of being mediocre; having only an average degree of quality, skills etc.; no better than standard.
- Synonym: middlingness
- Coordinate terms: midness (denoting low quality in 21st-century slang); inadequacy, insufficiency, poorness; excellence
- Flexibility is good, but a tolerance for mediocrity carried far enough impairs operational capacity.
- 2021 March 28, Phil McNulty, “Albania 0-2 England”, in BBC Sport:
- England captain Harry Kane lifted the mediocrity of an attritional first half on a slow surface when he scored his 33rd goal for his country, a superbly guided diving header from Luke Shaw's cross seven minutes before the interval.
- (countable) A person with mediocre abilities or achievements.
- populated with mediocrities
- surrounded by mediocrities
- (now rare) The quality of being intermediate between two extremes; a mean.
- (obsolete) A middle course of action; moderation, balance.
- 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:, New York Review Books 2001, p.273:
- In adversity I wish for prosperity, and in prosperity I am afraid of adversity. What mediocrity may be found?
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
condition of being mediocre
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