RUN-OF-THE-MILL Definition & Meaning

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run-of-the-mill

[ ruhn-uhv-thuh-mil ]

Phonetic (Standard)IPA

adjective

merely average; commonplace; mediocre:
just a plain, run-of-the-mill house; a run-of-the-mill performance.
Synonyms: , ,

run-of-the-mill

adjective

ordinary, average, or undistinguished in quality, character, or nature; not special or excellent

run of the mill

Common, ordinary, average: “His performance in the game was neither exemplary nor disastrous; it was simply run of the mill.”

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51�Թ� History and Origins

Origin of run-of-the-mill¹

First recorded in 1925–30

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Idioms and Phrases

Ordinary, average, as in There's nothing special about these singers—they're just run of the mill . This expression alludes to fabrics coming directly from a mill without having been sorted or inspected for quality. It has survived such similar phrases as run of the mine and run of the kiln , for the products of mines and kilns. [Late 1800s]

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

“The message from Adam’s case is that if you’re going to indict some run-of-the-mill CEO of a company, you need to check if he’s a Trump supporter first,” the former prosecutor said.

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A movie on this story needed to embrace unconventional moves and not feel like just another run-of-the-mill documentary.

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All to watch a mundane, routine, run-of-the-mill workout.

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A run-of-the-mill aggregator could produce a glorified, book-length blog post ranking the best dunks and dunkers.

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Depicting the casually abusive, chauvinist male pig we’ve seen countless times before isn’t unique enough to warrant inflicting audiences with more run-of-the-mill sequences of abject violence against women, or even robots who look like women.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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