middling
\MID-ling\
adjective
1. mediocre; ordinary; commonplace; pedestrian: The restaurant's entrées are no better than middling.
2. medium, moderate, or average in size, quantity, or quality: The returns on such a large investment may be only middling.
Quotes
…what mattered most, as I came to realize, was who'd lived in Vegas the longest, which was why the knockdown Mexican beauties and itinerant construction heirs sat alone at lunch while the bland, middling children of local realtors and car dealers were the cheerleaders and class presidents, the unchallenged elite of the school.
-- Donna Tartt, The Goldfinch, 2013
Origin
Middling started to be used as an adjective in the mid-1400s, though it was used as a noun meaning "something intermediate or in the middle" in Old English.
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