Fair to middling
Suggest a CorrectionMeaning
Acceptable or moderately good, but not especially impressive.
Origin
Middling had long meant intermediate in quality and was used in Scottish and later wider British systems of grading. Fair to middling begins appearing in the early 1820s both as a joking assessment of people and as a commercial grade for commodities: an 1822 British report applies it to rice, and an American report that year applies it to cotton. Cotton trading helped preserve the phrase, but it was not its only source or use. The wording describes a range between two adjacent grades rather than something halfway between fair and poor.
Research Sources
Variants
- Middling to fair
- Fair-to-middling
Usage Examples
- The first act was excellent, but the rest of the performance was only fair to middling.
- Business has been fair to middling this month: steady, though far from spectacular.
- He rated the hotel fair-to-middling because the room was clean but the service was slow.