middlingness
(ˈmɪdlɪŋnɪs)
[f. middling a. + -ness.]
The state of being middling; mediocrity.
| 1866 Geo. Eliot F. Holt v, 'Tis a poor climax, to my weaker thought, That future middlingness. 1929 D. H. Lawrence Pansies 120 Nothing that transcends the bourgeois middlingness. 1957 Essays in Crit. VII. 216 The umbrella of ‘moderation’—the chief of the new slogans—means too frequently that middlingness, lack of real poetic talent and ambition has found yet another cosy corner for itself in our watered-down, democratic culture. |