Crossword clues for mediocrity
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Mediocrity \Me`di*oc"ri*ty\, n. [F. m['e]diocrit['e], L. mediocritas.]
The quality of being mediocre; a middle state or degree; a moderate degree or rate. ``A mediocrity of success.''
--Bacon.Moderation; temperance. [Obs.]
--Hooker.A mediocre person; -- used disparagingly.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
early 15c., "moderation; intermediate state or amount," from Middle French médiocrité and directly from Latin mediocritatem (nominative mediocritas) "a middle state, middling condition, medium," from mediocris (see mediocre). Neutral at first; disparaging sense began to predominate from late 16c. The meaning "person of mediocre abilities or attainments" is from 1690s. Before the tinge of disparagement crept in, another name for the Golden Mean was golden mediocrity.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context now rare English) The quality of being intermediate between two extremes; a mean. 2 (context obsolete English) A middle course of action; moderation, balance. 3 (context uncountable English) The condition of being mediocre; having only an average degree of quality, skills etc.; no better than standard. 4 An individual with mediocre abilities or achievements.
WordNet
n. ordinariness as a consequence of being average and not outstanding [syn: averageness]
a person of second-rate ability or value; "a team of aging second-raters"; "shone among the mediocrities who surrounded him" [syn: second-rater]
Wikipedia
The 2011 Mediocrity is an advertising campaign launched by Subaru of America to represent the blandness of mid-sized sedans. The ad campaign presents a fictitious vehicle that lampoons the American mid-sized sedan market. Without directly attacking any specific automobile manufacturer, the 2011 Mediocrity is a sedan that exemplifies all of the typical and non-surprising features that are found in the marketplace in 2010.
Usage examples of "mediocrity".
The mediocrities take on promotions that are too big for them, and when the product flops-out they go.
I, for instance, may not necessarily be a mediocrity, but when I look at my face in a mirror, I realize that my quite ordinary face is definitely a handicap.
I myself would melt into the crowd and dissolve into mediocrity once more!
I concede, it may be a triumph of vulgarity, require no talent, and suit a mediocrity, but there can hardly be any impotence in this case.
I told him then what I thought of him, giving vent to all the accumulated irritation of the past few days: he was, I said, a pitiful mediocrity, a mindless, unimaginative hanger-on, without the seed of an original idea.
The true genius, he thought, frequently succeeds in rising despite great obstacles, while no amount of family pull will succeed in making a mediocrity into a genius, although it may land him in some high and very comfortable official position.
How long are we to be asked to believe, on blind faith, that the child is putty, of which the educator can make either mediocrity or genius, depending on his skill?
Furthermore a stock in general below mediocrity will occasionally, due to some fortuitous but fortunate combination of traits, give rise to an individual of marked ability or even eminence, who will be able to transmit in some degree that valuable new combination of traits to his or her own progeny.
All her immediate surroundings, the wearisome country, the middle-class imbeciles, the mediocrity of existence, seemed to her exceptional, a peculiar chance that had caught hold of her, while beyond stretched, as far as eye could see, an immense land of joys and passions.
Domestic mediocrity drove her to lewd fancies, marriage tenderness to adulterous desires.
Then they talked about provincial mediocrity, of the lives it crushed, the illusions lost there.
La Place, so happily calculated for science, displayed the most inconceivable mediocrity in administration.
It serves to explain why many men of mediocrity were elevated to the highest dignities and honours, while other men of real merit fell into disgrace or were utterly neglected.
This confidence in mediocrity, dictated by an honourable feeling, did not obtain a suitable return.
Was Junot, a compound of vanity and mediocrity, the fit man to be entrusted with the command of an army in a distant country, and under circumstances in which great political and military talents were requisite?