English Explanatory Dictionary

fair to middling

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Only tolerably good; somewhat favorable.

Pronunciation

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-fair to middling.wav

Word forms

fair to middling fair-to-middling fair to middlin' fair to meddling

Etymology

From the practice of classifying agricultural commodities as fair or middling. The earliest attested instance of these descriptions being combined into the phrase fair to middling was in a British publication of 1822 but the first instance of this usage being generalised is from an American publication of 1837

Synonyms

adequate OK tolerable
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on F Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary