mediocre

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French médiocre,^[2][3][4][5] recorded in French from 1495,^[6] from Latin mediocris (“of middle degree, quality or rank; middling, moderate”),^[6][4][3] literally "halfway up a mountain".^[2][3][7][8] Hoad treats it as partly a direct borrowing from Latin,^[9] and Barnhart thinks it was in some cases a back-formation from the earlier mediocrity.^[2] The Latin adjective combines medius (“middle”), from Proto-Indo-European *medhyo- (“middle”),^[3][10] with ocris (“rugged, stony mountain”).^{[6][7][10][4]} The second part is cognate with Umbrian ukar (“citadel, mountain”), Ancient Greek ὄκρις (ókris, “point, peak”) and Welsh ochr (“edge, side”),^[6][4][3] and is related by ablaut to ācer (“sharp”),^[4][8][11] from Proto-Indo-European *ak- (“to be sharp, rise to a point”).^[3][10] Weekley stressed that the image is halfway up a hill, not its top.^[11] Middle English already had the adverb mediokerli in the early 15th century.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of middling quality, neither good nor bad; average, and so often second-rate: 1586, in Angel Day's English Secretorie, of style.^[6] The Shorter Oxford dates it to the late 16th century,^[12] and Merriam-Webster to about 1586.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In Latin, mediocris and mediocritās covered a middle degree of quality, moderation, and middle social rank, and the Latin words could already imply inferiority;^[6] French médiocrité was not used disparagingly until the early 17th century.^[6] Latin applied the adjective to literary style and to poets, and so did French, which is the setting of the first English quotation.^[6] In English the neutral sense "average" and the critical sense "second-rate" have run together from the start, and the word has been used mostly of literary and artistic work.^[6] In the 18th and early 19th centuries it was often printed in italics and with an accent, as a French word.^[6] Used as a noun, it meant mediocre things or people in the plural from 1813, in a letter of Thomas Jefferson,^[6] and the mediocre, mediocre people as a class, from 1884;^[6] Etymonline dates the noun to 1834.^[3] French had le médiocre from 1674.^[6]

Timeline

• 1495 – first record of the French adjective médiocre.^[6]
• early 15th century – the Middle English adverb mediokerli.^[3]
• 1586 – of middling quality; average, second-rate.^[6][8][2]
• 1813 – noun, in the plural, mediocre things or people.^[6]
• 1884 – the mediocre, mediocre people as a class.^[6]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of only average or middling quality; ordinary, neither good nor bad: a mediocre meal at an expensive restaurant.^[13][8][6]
2. Of rather poor quality, ability or value; second-rate: a mediocre pupil who never studied.^[8][6][12]

Noun

1. (usually plural, or with the) Mediocre things or people.^[6][3]

Word family

• submediocre

Related words

• mean
• medium
• mediate
• mediation
• mediator
• median
• mediocrity
• mid
• acrid
• edge

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins