Literary notes about middling (AI summary)
The term "middling" is frequently used in literature to signify a state or quality that is average, moderate, or intermediate. Authors apply it in varied contexts: describing a person’s physical attributes or social standing—as in a character of middling stature [1] or one belonging to the middling class [2]—and evaluating objects or conditions, such as middling wheat prices [3] and middling weather [4]. It also serves to diminish or temper praise or criticism, evident when a writer refers to middling powers to imply neither excellence nor complete incompetence [5]. This flexible descriptor, whether addressing physical size [6, 7], quality of performance [8], or the overall condition of an entity [9], consistently functions to mark a middle ground between extremes.
- The ſaid Brown is of a middling Stature, thin, looked ſickly and very poor, as if he had had the yellow Fever:
— from The Olden Time Series, Vol. 4: Quaint and Curious AdvertisementsGleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts by Henry M. (Henry Mason) Brooks - As far as I've seen, that is the case with the middling class throughout the South."
— from Among the Pines; or, South in Secession Time by James R. (James Roberts) Gilmore - 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.
— from An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith - Said she: “Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn’t it?”
— from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete by Mark Twain - Is it not by risking nothing, by never aiming high, that a writer of low or middling powers keeps generally clear of faults and secure of blame?
— from On the Sublime by active 1st century Longinus - For a middling-sized one, it takes about two hours.
— from Hand-Book of Practical Cookery, for Ladies and Professional Cooks Containing the Whole Science and Art of Preparing Human Food by Pierre Blot - They go in pairs—a big boy and a big girl, a middling boy and a middling girl, and then a dear little girl with a face like a kitten.
— from Betty Trevor by Vaizey, George de Horne, Mrs. - 'Did you strike him first?' 'Yes, sir.' 'What with?' 'A stool, sir.' 'Hard?' 'Middling, sir.' 'Did it knock him down?' 'He—he fell, sir.'
— from Life on the Mississippi by Mark Twain - But my voice is only middling, like everything else in me."
— from The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
