1
as in decent
of average to below average quality
a second-rate song from a songwriter who has done much better
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in inferior
of little or less value or merit
a second-rate company that was never considered among the top manufacturers of televisions
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in cheap
of low quality
second-rate goods specifically manufactured for the low end of the market
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of second-rate
Meanwhile, TPUs are far from a second-rate technology.
—
Jeff John Roberts,
Fortune,
17 Dec. 2025
Moreno said Bad Bunny is a second-rate performer and said his performing at the Super Bowl is a partisan choice.
—
Chad Murphy,
Cincinnati Enquirer,
9 Oct. 2025
The freshman quarterback has faced second-rate competition thus far and has daunting matchups next month.
—
Jon Wilner,
Mercury News,
24 Sep. 2025
Occasionally held back by a very mid-'00s aesthetic and stylistic choices that come across second-rate David Lynch, No Smoking is nonetheless an effectively paranoid adaptation of King for another culture.
—
James Grebey,
Time,
12 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for second-rate
Jeff John Roberts,
Fortune,
17 Dec. 2025
Moreno said Bad Bunny is a second-rate performer and said his performing at the Super Bowl is a partisan choice.
—
Chad Murphy,
Cincinnati Enquirer,
9 Oct. 2025
The freshman quarterback has faced second-rate competition thus far and has daunting matchups next month.
—
Jon Wilner,
Mercury News,
24 Sep. 2025
Occasionally held back by a very mid-'00s aesthetic and stylistic choices that come across second-rate David Lynch, No Smoking is nonetheless an effectively paranoid adaptation of King for another culture.
—
James Grebey,
Time,
12 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for second-rate
Recent Examples of Synonyms for second-rate
Adjective
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Find a quiet gate, buy a decent coffee, use your noise-canceling headphones.
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Rear-seat passengers get decent legroom and the cargo area is practical enough for road trips, shopping runs or airport duty.
Adjective
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More broadly, the idea that White players are inherently inferior no longer matches reality.
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This is because Austria would have remained on three points but with an inferior goal difference to Iran in the third-place standings (minus one to zero).
Adjective
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The revolution won’t come cheap.
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Across six online experiments, the researchers showed participants a cheaper lower-quality item such as a sweater alongside a pricier higher-quality version.
Adjective
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And a mediocre company can become an extraordinary one when almost everyone has already given up.
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Instead, Peralta has been worse than mediocre.
Adjective
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Messi had been dealing with a minor hamstring injury with Inter Miami that slowed him in the lead-up to the World Cup.
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Nearly four-fifths of respondents said that gas prices present some sort of strain, with 34% categorizing it as a major strain and 44% calling it a minor strain.
Adjective
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Because of that, these hands suffer from high production costs, poor durability against impacts, short operational lifespans, and there are no existing solutions that engineers can readily draw upon, Wang added.
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The extreme heat can also affect people who are physically ill, especially those with heart disease or high blood pressure, or who take certain medications, such as for depression, insomnia, or poor circulation.
Adjective
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For writing, editing, spreadsheets, email, and web browsing, performance proved entirely satisfactory.
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Iran hawks and an array of dissidents and mainstream voices within the Republican Party have cast doubt on whether the agreement secured satisfactory concessions from Iran.
Adjective
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The quartet eventually broke America with later albums, but Arctic Monkeys songs were faster, funnier, and meaner in 2006.
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Chen noted that the FDA approval was based on a single clinical trial with a mean participant age of 47, and nearly 74% of participants were women.
Cite this Entry
“Second-rate.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/second-rate. Accessed 2 Jul. 2026.
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