English

Alternative forms

• fair-to-middling, fair to middlin'

Adjective

fair to middling ‎(not comparable)

1. (idiomatic, usually hyphenated when placed before noun) Only tolerably good; somewhat favorable.
   • 1907, Mark Twain, Christian Science, ch. 7:

     "O'er Waiting Harpstrings of the Mind" is pretty good, quite fair to middling—the whole seven of the stanzas—but repetition would be certain to take the excitement out of it in the course of time.

   • 1911, Peter B. Kyne, Captain Scraggs or The Green-Pea Pirates, ch. 29:

     Not a heluva good one, but fair to middlin’.

   • 2009 Nov. 20, William C. Rhoden, "Sports of The Times: Iverson Isn’t the Answer for Knicks," New York Times (retrieved 20 Dec 2011):

     For the next five months, Knicks fans will have to watch a collection of underachievers, inexperienced players and fair-to-middling pros attempt to be respectable.

Synonyms

• adequate, OK (adj.), tolerable