How to Use middling in a Sentence

middling

adjective
Definition of middlingnext
Synonyms for middlingnext
  • With the loss, the Heat fell to a middling 21-20 at the midpoint of their schedule.
    — Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 9 Jan. 2023
  • The league was still older at that point and the Warriors were still a middling team in the West.
    — Shane Young, Forbes, 25 June 2022
  • Smith was the head coach of a middling South Dakota program at the time.
    — Kevin Reynolds, The Salt Lake Tribune, 4 Mar. 2022
  • But that can’t quite get The Son past the middling dramatic scenes that take up so much of the movie.
    — K. Austin Collins, Rolling Stone, 19 Jan. 2023
  • The best thing to say about this middling installment is that its heart is in the right place.
    — Dallas News, 29 Sep. 2022
  • Even with name and nose changes, most of the great Jewish stage stars of the era had middling film careers.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 28 Nov. 2023
  • Joe, a middling drummer at best, just tagged along for fun.
    — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 4 Aug. 2023
  • Broadcast shows offer easy pleasures, and this tends to be true of the middling ones as well as the best.
    — Robert Lloyd, Anchorage Daily News, 6 Oct. 2022
  • There was the 2016 version, which got middling reviews but gave us a new member of the squad, Bliss.
    — Vulture, 18 July 2022
  • Such is the reality of a middling team in the midst of a middling season.
    — Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 12 Apr. 2023
  • Gu landed a middling run the first time, then fell off the third rail on her second attempt.
    — New York Times, 14 Feb. 2022
  • In the series’ first episode since the start of the Writers Guild of America strike, the live sketches were middling to flat.
    — Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times, 15 Oct. 2023
  • Mark Wahlberg had it in The Departed and tries to revive it here, to middling effect.
    — Kyle Smith, National Review, 16 Feb. 2022
  • The Astros have spent much of April mired in a bit of a nervous malaise, with an unproven roster and middling record.
    — Michael Shapiro, Chron, 20 Apr. 2023
  • One of the few middling reviews Rushdie received was from his father.
    — David Remnick, The New Yorker, 6 Feb. 2023
  • Prigozhin, by then an oligarch of middling rank, saw an opening.
    — Joshua Yaffa, The New Yorker, 24 June 2023
  • The result was Adebayo averaging a middling 15.5 points per game as the Heat were swept out of the first round.
    — Ira Winderman, Sun Sentinel, 23 Apr. 2022
  • If not, and the result is closer to last season’s middling 8-4, Fisher will be the butt of jokes for his blustery bark and lack of bite.
    — Brent Zwerneman, San Antonio Express-News, 24 May 2022
  • So what makes a middling rental into something that a hedge funder would want to drop a few million on?
    — Curbed, 2 Oct. 2023
  • Some are trying to get appointments on the CBP app with middling success.
    — Danielle Villasana, Washington Post, 1 June 2023
  • Normally, there’s no reason to chill the Dom Perignon after losing a series at home to cap a middling run of 4-6 in the last 10 games.
    — Bryce Millercolumnist, San Diego Union-Tribune, 26 June 2022
  • This season, a carousel of goaltenders led to a middling defensive rank, but Jake Oettinger has been the team’s best player in the first two games.
    — Dallas News, 7 May 2022
  • Goncharenko said a middling package of sanctions won't hurt Putin.
    — Peter Weber, The Week, 24 Feb. 2022
  • Not as Williams had another middling game, passing for 256 yards and not a single score.
    — Ryan Kartje, Los Angeles Times, 22 Oct. 2023
  • In 2022, Volition launched a reboot of Saints Row to middling reviews.
    — Ash Parrish, The Verge, 31 Aug. 2023
  • Though founded in 1916, Club América was a middling club during the first few decades of existence.
    — Fidel Martinez, Los Angeles Times, 8 Sep. 2022
  • That film drew its own middling reception, which may have taken away some of the thrill of the franchise for audiences.
    — J. Kim Murphy, Variety, 1 July 2023
  • Over the past few years the U.S. has struggled with middling productivity growth.
    — Paolo Confino, Fortune, 19 Mar. 2024
  • Jokić’s season last year flipped the voting on its head as his Nuggets were a middling playoff team, but for the most part this award goes to the best player on the best team (or close to it).
    — Jim Owczarski, Journal Sentinel, 13 Mar. 2023
  • In addition to losing and winning the county once each himself, his record in the midterms was equally middling.
    — Jess Bidgood, BostonGlobe.com, 3 Sep. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'middling.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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