mediocrity

That was the task Michael Carrick took on in January when he was appointed Manchester United's interim manager and took over a club that was drifting deeper and deeper into mediocrity.

From BBC ● Oct. 25, 2026

Sample some new snacks: Summer barbecues are rife with potato-chip mediocrity.

From Slate ● Sep. 4, 2026

And in a league hard-wired to drag down any team that inches too far ahead, anyone who resists the gravitational pull toward mediocrity has figured out how to beat the system.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026

Over the decades, they have produced classics such as “Exile on Main St.” and “Some Girls,” mediocrity like “Steel Wheels,” and abominations such as “Dirty Work.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026

The strength of this immutable desire saved her from the mediocrity and sadness of her fate.

From "The House of the Spirits: A Novel" by Isabel Allende

But they were also politicians, self-serving and ambitious, often well-born mediocrities flying high above their general level of talent.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 30, 2022

The hothouse atmosphere of festivals can be misleading and turn mediocrities into events, certainly, but the noisy clamor of such hype is always outweighed by the joys of experiencing discoveries and revelations with others.

From New York Times ● Jan. 28, 2022

In Cummings’s ontology, the world appears to be made up of an extremely small number of outstandingly clever individuals and a mass of mediocrities.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 6, 2020

This "Pet Sematary" remake isn't the most egregious offender of overused horror clichés, but it is an exemplar of the genre's worst mediocrities.

From Salon ● Apr. 5, 2019

It’s why picking the right candidate for a job is so difficult and why, on more occasions than we may care to admit, utter mediocrities sometimes end up in positions of enormous responsibility.

From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell