From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Middling \Mid"dling\, a.
Of middle rank, state, size, or quality; about equally
distant from the extremes; medium; moderate; mediocre;
ordinary. "A town of but middling size." --Hallam.
[1913 Webster]
Plainly furnished, as beseemed the middling
circumstances of its inhabitants. --Hawthorne.
[1913 Webster] -- Mid"dling*ly, adv. -- Mid"dling*ness,
n.
[1913 Webster]
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
middling
adv 1: to a moderately sufficient extent or degree; "pretty
big"; "pretty bad"; "jolly decent of him"; "the shoes are
priced reasonably"; "he is fairly clever with computers"
[syn: reasonably, moderately, pretty, jolly,
somewhat, fairly, middling, passably] [ant:
immoderately, unreasonably]
adj 1: lacking exceptional quality or ability; "a novel of
average merit"; "only a fair performance of the sonata";
"in fair health"; "the caliber of the students has gone
from mediocre to above average"; "the performance was
middling at best" [syn: average, fair, mediocre,
middling]
n 1: any commodity of intermediate quality or size (especially
when coarse particles of ground wheat are mixed with bran)