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Middling vs Excellent - What's the difference?

middling | excellent |

As adjectives the difference between middling and excellent

is that middling is of intermediate or average size, position, or quality; mediocre while excellent is of the highest quality; splendid.

As an adverb excellent is

(obsolete) excellently.

middling

English

Adjective

(-)
  • Of intermediate or average size, position, or quality; mediocre
  • The football team is never the worst or best in its league; its position is always middling .
  • * 12 July 2012 , Sam Adams, AV Club Ice Age: Continental Drift
  • The matter of whether the world needs a fourth Ice Age movie pales beside the question of why there were three before it, but Continental Drift feels less like an extension of a theatrical franchise than an episode of a middling TV cartoon, lolling around on territory that’s already been settled.
  • In fairly good health.
  • *1913 ,
  • *:"And how's that chest of yours?" demanded Mrs. Morel.
  • *:He smiled again, with his blue eyes rather sunny.
  • *:"Oh, it's very middlin' ," he said.
  • Synonyms

    * average, medium, unexceptional

    Derived terms

    * fair to middling

    excellent

    Adjective

    (en-adj)
  • Of the highest quality; splendid.
  • *
  • *:A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat forward, staring into the dull, small fire.
  • Exceptionally good of its kind.
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Catherine Clabby
  • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= Focus on Everything , passage=Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus. That’s because the lenses that are excellent at magnifying tiny subjects produce a narrow depth of field. A photo processing technique called focus stacking has changed that.}}
  • Superior in kind or degree, irrespective of moral quality.
  • *(David Hume) (1711-1776)
  • *:an excellent hypocrite
  • *(Beaumont and Fletcher) (1603-1625)
  • *:Their sorrows are most excellent .
  • Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * excellence * excellently * excellentness

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • (obsolete) Excellently.
  • *, New York Review Books 2001, p.287:
  • Lucian, in his tract de Mercede conductis , hath excellent well deciphered such men's proceedings in his picture of Opulentia […].

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