less-than-stellar

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛs ðən ˈstɛ.lə/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈlɛs ðən ˈstɛl.ɚ/
• Hyphenation: less-than-stel‧lar

less-than-stellar (comparative form only)

1. (slang, sarcastic) Mediocre; not satisfactory; not very good, poor; not meeting standards or expectations.
   • 1931, Music and Dance, volume 21, Melbourne, Vic.: Australian Musical News Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 27, column 2:

     Some years ago there were hundreds of musicians of ability, but of less stellar renown, who toured the country, giving performances at less than stellar fees.

   • 1970, Hardware Age, volume 205, New York, N.Y.: David Williams Co., →OCLC, page 8, column 1:

     Yet the economic seers are at it again, seemingly unabashed by their somewhat less than stellar performances in 1969.

   • 2012, Linda A. Jenkins, “What is Social Lending?”, in Creative Financing: How to Get a Small Business Loan without a Banker, Gold Alliance Group, →ISBN, page 1:

     Where a bank may automatically reject any borrower based on a bad credit score, this is not true for all social lending networks. You can still have a less than stellar score and obtain funding as long as you can convince a peer tha your project is worthy or your business model is strong.

   • 2014, Ron Weisner, Alan Goldsher, “The Jacksons”, in Listen Out Loud: A Life in Music—Managing McCartney, Madonna, and Michael Jackson, Guildford, Conn.: Lyons Press, →ISBN, page 83:

     The Jacksons' less-than-stellar sales led to less-than-stellar bookings, then the less-than-stellar bookings led to no bookings.

   • 2015, David Kosař, “Selecting Strasbourg Judges: A Critique”, in Michal Bobek, editor, Selecting Europe’s Judges: A Critical Review of the Appointment Procedures to the European Courts, Oxford: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 157:

     Instead of discussing how to attract top candidates, states and PACE [the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe] blame each other for being responsible for electing less-than-stellar judges. […] At the same time, less-than-stellar candidates will get the message that they indeed have a chance. In other words, top candidates will not apply as the PACE is unpredictable and unprincipled, whereas less-than-stellar candidates will apply precisely because the PACE is unpredictable and unprincipled.

   • 2015, Dan Immergluck, “The Housing Finance Debate”, in Preventing the Next Mortgage Crisis: The Meltdown, the Federal Response, and the Future of Housing in America, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 136:

     In effect, risk-based pricing creates a penalty for those in the mortgage market with less wealth and less-than-stellar credit. Other estimates on the interest-rate premiums that borrowers with less-than-stellar credit would face exceed the conservative estimates presented in figure 5.3.

   • 2016 November 18, Daniel Golden, “How did ‘less than stellar’ high school student Jared Kushner get into Harvard?: Donald Trump’s son-in-law was accepted into the Ivy League university in the wake of a $2.5m pledge made by his parents”, in The Guardian‎, London, archived from the original on 19 November 2017:

     I also quoted administrators at Jared [Kushner]'s high school, who described him as a less-than-stellar student and expressed dismay at Harvard's decision.

   • 2024 May 4, Simon Tisdall, “Giorgia Meloni and Ursula von der Leyen, the double act that is steering the EU ever rightwards”, in The Observer‎, →ISSN:

     Most telling is her co-opting of Ursula von der Leyen, the less than stellar European Commission president who covets an undeserved second five-year term.

• less than stellar