Word.ws English Dictionary

middle-of-the-road

middle-of-the-road is the alternative spelling of middle of the road.

Meaning of middle of the road

Adjective

middle of the road

  1. (idiomatic) Having a centrist attitude or philosophy; not extreme, especially politically.
    • A typical middle of the road compromise is to leave the problem as it is.
  2. (derogatory, sometimes) Of a type of melodic popular music that has wide appeal.
    • Damon Albarn has disappointed fans expecting the third Adele album to take a drill’n’bass direction by saying that the tracks he has heard are “very middle of the road”.2015 September 10, Damon Albarn, quotee, “Damon Albarn suggests new Adele album is ‘very middle of the road’”, in The Guardian

See all 3 meanings of middle of the road

Words formed from middle-of-the-road

Questions about middle-of-the-road

What is middle-of-the-road the alternative spelling of?
Middle-of-the-road is the alternative spelling of middle of the road.

Words near middle-of-the-road in the dictionary

  1. Middle-Indo-Aryan
  2. middle-man
  3. middle-market
  4. middle-men
  5. middle-nameless
  6. middle-of-the-road
  7. middle-of-the-roader
  8. middle-of-the-roaders
  9. middle-of-the-roadism
  10. middle-of-the-roadness
  11. middle-range

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: middle-of-the-road (page history and authors); middle of the road (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “middle-of-the-road.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/middle-of-the-road. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.