2020-11-04 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด M - Mediocre

Revision M-Q

2020-11-04

ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด M - Mediocre

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Dictionary.com

ออกเสียง Mediocre = ‘mee-dee-OH-ker’

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

The Enduring Moderation of Mediocre

One of the things that is remarkableabout mediocre

is the extent to which it has

retained its meaning over the course of

more than four centuries of continual use.

The word, when used as an adjective,

has changed very little, if at all, in itsmeaning

since it was used in a 1586 book titled

The English Secretorie (our earliest known evidence):

“Mediocre, a meane betwixt high and low, vehement and slender,

too much and too little as we saye. . . .”

The word comes to English via Middle French from the Latin word mediocris, meaning "of medium size, moderate, middling, commonplace," and perhaps originally"halfway to the top."

The noun form of mediocre is mediocrity.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

History and Etymology for mediocre

borrowed from Middle French & Latin; Middle French, borrowed from Latin mediocris "of medium size, moderate, middling, commonplace," perhaps originally "halfway to the top," from medius "middle, central" + -ocris, adjective derivative from the base of Old Latin ocris "rugged mountain," going back to Indo-European *h₂oḱ-r-i- "point, peak, edge" (whence also Umbrian ukar, ocar "citadel," Middle Irish ochair "edge, border," Welsh ochr, Greek ókris "top, point, corner"), derivative of *h₂eḱ- "pointed" — more at MID entry 1, EDGE entry 1

NOTE: The base *h₂oḱ-r-i- forms a pair with *h₂eḱ-r- "sharp, pointed" (see ACRO-) and the two have been explained as part of an original "acrostatic" paradigm of a noun, with fixed stress on the root, o-vocalism in the direct cases and e-vocalism in the oblique cases, with Indo-European daughter languages generalizing one form or another.

Note that Greek has both ókris, as above, and ákris "hilltop, mountain peak." Perhaps also belonging here is Sanskrit aśri- "corner, angle, edge" (see at ACRO-), where the vowel may be either *a or *o.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,

Word History:

Belying the very meaning of the word,

the adjective mediocre has aremarkable and unexpected etymology.

Mediocre ultimately comes from Latin mediocris,

which meant "middling, ordinary, unremarkable."

The Latin word in turn is a compound based on a rather concrete metaphor—we often find that abstract words are rooted in vivid comparisons when we trace the history of words back till we hit bedrock.

In this case, the bedrock is a Latin word for "mountain."

Mediocris is a compound of the adjective medius, "half" or "in the middle," and ocris, "rugged mountain."

Something that is mediocre is only midway up a mountain

or rises up to only half a mountain's height,

as it were—the thing goes just halfway to the highest point of excellence.

The resemblance between the Latin word medius and English words like middle and midway is noaccident.

They are all ultimately descended from the Proto-Indo-European word *medhyo-, "middle."

Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary

Mediocre

Although some dictionaries

accept the meaning of this word as “medium” or “average,”

in fact its connotations are almost alwaysmore negative.

When something is distinctly not as good as it could be,

it is mediocre.

If you want to say that you are an average student,

don’t proclaim yourself mediocre,

or you’ll convey a worse impression of yourself than you intend.