mediocre

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adjective me·di·o·cre \ ˌmē-dē-ˈō-kər \

Definition of mediocre

:of moderate or low quality, value, ability, or performance :ordinary, so-so

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Examples of mediocre in a Sentence

They sensed that mediocre students like Roosevelt really did possess a set of virtues that needed to be protected and cherished. —David Brooks, New York Times Book Review, 6 Nov. 2005
Of course, it could be that what Wesley has been through steeled his nerves and transformed him from a mediocre point guard into one of the fiercest shooters in the league with the game on the line. —Chad Millman, ESPN, 14 May 2001
In short, they'd have to build a first-rate health-care system out of the shantytown's mediocre one—a system that would administer those drugs reliably and keep the patients' spirits up, because the second-line drugs are weak and have unpleasant side effects, which a patient has to endure for as much as two years. —Tracy Kidder, New Yorker, 10 July 2000
The dinner was delicious, but the dessert was mediocre.
The carpenter did a mediocre job.
The critics dismissed him as a mediocre actor.

Recent Examples of mediocre from the Web

Saturday, Sept. 9: vs. Northern Colorado, 7:30 p.m. (SEC Network): The Bears were mediocre in FCS play last season, amassing a 6-5 record including a 21-47 loss to Jim McElwain’s former team, Colorado State.

— ethan bauer, miamiherald, "How are the Gators going to do this year? Breaking down each and every game," 29 Aug. 2017
He's been mostly mediocre away from Heinz Field the last two seasons.

— eddie brown, sandiegouniontribune.com, "Fantasy Football 2017: 32 busts," 16 Aug. 2017
His performance at the PGA was nothing more than mediocre.

— mike purkey, charlotteobserver, "10 takeaways from the PGA, where Quail Hollow was big winner in majors debut," 13 Aug. 2017
A great pair of speakers can make an otherwise mediocre audio system sound amazing.

— idahostatesman, "Looking to upgrade your sound? Here are the best speakers so far this year," 28 July 2017
As the season progresses to its latter stages, the Dodgers have brushed off a mediocre start and morphed into a colossus.

— adam kilgore, chicagotribune.com, "The Los Angeles Dodgers have become baseball's version of the Golden State Warriors," 17 July 2017
When the film marked its 50th anniversary in 2013, Landau recalled the monumentally mediocre movie’s other headlining scandal: Elizabeth Taylor’s adulterous affair with Burton.

— nardine saad, Jewish Journal, "Oscar-winner Martin Landau dies at 89," 17 July 2017
But on the other, drop a mediocre punchline and the lukewarm reaction spread out among those thousands is extra mood-killing.

— zach freeman, chicagotribune.com, "Comedy Get Down finally arrives in Chicago: These guys are pros," 15 July 2017
Commodities got cheaper through much of the second quarter, adding to several years of mediocre-to-weak performance.

— conrad de aenlle, New York Times, "A Possible Alternative to Stocks and Bonds: Commodities?," 14 July 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'mediocre.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Why being halfway up a mountain is mediocre

One of the things that is remarkable about mediocre is the extent to which it has retained its meaning over the course of more than four centuries of continual use. The word, when used as an adjective, has changed very little, if at all, in its meaning since it was used in a 1586 book titled The English Secretorie (our earliest known evidence): “Mediocre, a meane betwixt high and low, vehement and slender, too much and too little as we saye. . . .” The word comes to English from the Middle French, which took it from a Latin word meaning “halfway up a mountain” (mediocris). The noun form of mediocre is mediocrity.