Middling
['mɪd(ə)lɪŋ] or ['mɪdlɪŋ]
Definition
(noun.) any commodity of intermediate quality or size (especially when coarse particles of ground wheat are mixed with bran).
Checked by Elisha--From WordNet
Definition
(a.) Of middle rank, state, size, or quality; about equally distant from the extremes; medium; moderate; mediocre; ordinary.
Checked by Bernadette
Synonyms and Synonymous
a. Ordinary, average, moderate, passable, tolerable, well enough, pretty well, not bad.
Checked by Leroy
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Ordinary, average, pretty_well, not_bad, well_enough,[See TOLERABLE]
Checked by Amy
Examples
- Yes, middling--except where the heath-croppers walk into it. Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- Middling, replies Mr. George, taking a chair. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
- A middling farmer will there sometimes have four hundred fowls in his yard. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Middling, middling, maister. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- Nineteen fair to middling Wallachian girls offered at L130 . 150, but no takers; sixteen prime A 1 sold in small lots to close out--terms private. Mark Twain. The Innocents Abroad.
- The middling sort of man, and even the poorer sort of man upon the land, were leading an endurable existence in 1700. H. G. Wells. The Outline of History_Being a Plain History of Life and Mankind.
- All people of small or middling fortunes would be obliged to superintend themselves the employment of their own stocks. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- The houses, the furniture, the clothing of the rich, in a little time, become useful to the inferior and middling ranks of people. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- But in the country, many middling and almost all rich and great families, brew their own beer. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Middling, Mr. Hall. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- Amy--Middling. Louisa May Alcott. Little Women.
- Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. Jane Austen. Emma.
- By this statute, the high duties upon importation for home consumption are taken off, so soon as the price of middling wheat rises to 48s. Adam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
- The meal was then bolted, and the tailings, consisting of bran, middlings and adherent flour, again sifted and re-ground. William Henry Doolittle. Inventions in the Century.
- Milling processes within the last twenty-five years have been completely transformed by the introduction of the roller mill and middlings purifier. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
- This portion of the grain was formerly unseparated, and was mixed with the middlings and bran as an inferior product. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
- It seems probable that the miller of the time had a fair notion of the high grade of flour ground from middlings, but no systematic method of procedure for its production was adopted. William Henry Doolittle. Inventions in the Century.
Editor: Paula