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mediocrity

UK/miː.dɪˈɒk.ɹɪ.ti/US/mi.dɪˈɑk.ɹɪ.ti/
nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,539 of 15,258neutralformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: mediocrities

Mediocrity is the state of being merely ordinary. Not bad enough to complain about, not good enough to remember.

The word is always a criticism, and it is a sharper one than it looks, because calling something mediocre denies it even the dignity of failure. It names the quality and also the person, so a mediocrity is somebody unremarkable, usually said with contempt. It is common in writing about art, sport and politics, where the accusation of settling for mediocrity does a lot of work. The adjective is mediocre, from Latin for halfway up a mountain.

Definitions of mediocrity

  1. 1nounmediocrityThe quality of being merely average and unremarkable.C1

    “He railed against the mediocrity of modern television.”

Where it comes from

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *h₂eḱ-

  2. Latin

    mediocritās

  3. Middle French

    médiocrité

  4. English, today

    mediocrity

From Middle French médiocrité, from Latin mediocritās, from mediocris; by surface analysis, mediocre + -ity.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Man Called Ove, Word Building

First appears in chapter 9 of A Man Called Ove.

Practise this word

mediocrity in the wild

  • Galton designed it to illustrate his idea of regression to the mean, which he called "reversion to mediocrity" and made part of his eugenist ideology.

    Galton board

  • The idea is to assume mediocrity, rather than starting with the assumption that a phenomenon is special, privileged, exceptional, or even superior.

    Mediocrity principle

  • The Athletics' on-field mediocrity, however, contained a few bright spots.

    1995 Oakland Athletics season

  • After fifteen years of mediocrity, they moved to Kansas City, Missouri in 1972, for which they played games in Kansas City and in Omaha, Nebraska.

    List of Sacramento Kings seasons

  • After thirteen years of mediocrity, they moved to Sacramento, California in 1986.

    List of Sacramento Kings seasons

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • mediocre