Word.ws English Dictionary

middle of the road

middle of the road adjective: having a centrist attitude or philosophy; not extreme, especially politically.

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.
    • Despite her massive mandate, [Jacinda] Ardern's agenda will be resolutely middle of the road [title]2020 November 12, Tova O'Brien, “Despite her mandate, Ardern's agenda will be resolutely middle of the road”, in The Guardian
  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

Noun

middle of the road (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) The middle; the average.
    • If us two competed together, we'd probably score just barely under the middle of the road.

Synonyms of middle of the road

5 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of middle of the road

alternative formmiddle-of-the-road

Words formed from middle of the road

Questions about middle of the road

What does middle of the road mean?
Middle of the road means having a centrist attitude or philosophy; not extreme, especially politically.
What part of speech is middle of the road?
Middle of the road can be an adjective or a noun.

Words near middle of the road in the dictionary

  1. middle notes
  2. Middle Ocean
  3. middle of bumfuck nowhere
  4. middle of nowhere
  5. middle of the market
  6. middle of the road
  7. middle office
  8. middle offices
  9. middle order
  10. middle orders
  11. Middle Ottoman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-middle of the road.ogg.

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