Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: So-so |
So-soAdjective1. Neither good nor bad; "an indifferent performance"; "a gifted painter but an indifferent actor"; "her work at the office is passable"; "a so-so golfer"; "feeling only so-so"; "prepared a tolerable dinner"; "a tolerable working knowledge of French". Adverb1. In an acceptable (but not outstanding) manner; "she plays tennis tolerably". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "so-so" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1600. (references) |
Synonyms: So-soSynonyms: indifferent (adj), passable (adj), so-so(p) (adj), tolerable (adj), acceptably (adv), tolerably (adv). (additional references) |
| Antonym: unacceptably (adv). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Imperfection | Indifferent, middling, ordinary, mediocre; average; so-so; coucicouci, milk and water; tolerable, fair, passable; pretty well, pretty good; rather good, moderately good; good; good enough, well enough, adequate; decent; not bad, not amiss; inobjectionable, unobjectionable, admissible, bearable, only better than nothing. |
Smallness | Adjective: small, little; diminutive; (small in size); minute; fine; inconsiderable, paltry; (unimportant); faint; (weak); slender, light, slight, scanty, scant, limited; meager; (insufficient); sparing; few; low, so-so, middling, tolerable, no great shakes; below par, under par, below the mark; at a low ebb; halfway; moderate, modest; tender, subtle. |
Unimportance | Subordinate; (inferior); mediocre; (average); passable, fair, respectable, tolerable, commonplace; uneventful, mere, common; ordinary; (habitual); inconsiderable, so-so, insignificant, inappreciable. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: So-so |
| English words defined with "so-so": Betwixt and between ♦ indifferent ♦ passable ♦ tolerable. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | Okay, umm, I just wanna say thatI love you guys so-so much and-and thank you for being here on my special night. (Friends; writing credit: Jörn O. Jensen; Birger Larsen) Ladies and gentlemen, let me lay on you a so-so entertainer, not much of a humanitarian, and this cat was never nobody's friend. (All That Jazz; writing credit: Robert Alan Aurthur; Bob Fosse) | |
Clever | I tried to be a tailor, but I just wasn't suited for it. Mainly because it was a so-so job. (references; author: unknown) | |
Movie/TV Titles | ||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Author | Quotation |
Martial | Some good, some so-so, and lots plain bad: that's how a book of poems is made, my friend. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| "So-so" is generally used as an adverb (general) -- approximately 78.26% of the time. "So-so" is used about 23 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adverb (general) | 78.26% | 18 | 82,615 |
| Conjunction (subordinating) | 21.74% | 5 | 157,705 |
| Total | 100.00% | 23 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
1. Soso, MS (town, FIPS 69160) |
| Language | Translations for "so-so"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | ぽ"引き (con-man, pimp, swindler, tout, you might say). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | まあまあ . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Manx | cossyllagh (fair, passable, presentable, pretty well). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | o-sosay regularmente (regularly), medíocre (average, bush-league, dissatisfactory, mediocre, middle-of-the-road, middling, poor, run-of-the-mill, undistinguished, unsatisfactory), mais ou menos (middling, more or less, so, some, somewhat, thereabout), duma maneira medíocre, assim-assim. (various references) так себе сносный. (various references) งั้นๆ. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Misspellings | |
"So-so" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: hsg-si, Hso-pso, oo-joa, osf-usl, saso, Soussou, tse-hsu. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "o-o-s-s" | |
-1 letter: sos. | |
-2 letters: os, so. | |
| Words containing the letters "o-o-s-s" | |
+1 letter: mosso, shoos, solos, sooks, soots. | |
+2 letters: boosts, bosoms, bosons, cosmos, gooses, kousso, looses, nooses, osmols, osmose, osmous, prosos, rooses, roosts, scoops, scoots, shooks, shools, shoots, sloops, snoods, snooks, snools, snoops, snoots, sodoms, sokols, solons, sooths, sopors, sorgos, sotols, spoofs, spooks, spools, spoons, spoors, stooks, stools, stoops, swoons, swoops, swoosh, torsos. | |
+3 letters: ariosos, bassoon, blossom, bolsons, bossdom, bostons, cashoos, chooses, cohosts, colossi, consols, dobsons, foisons, godsons, gossoon, isodose, isogons, isologs, isopods, koussos, loosens, loosest, lotoses, noosers, nostocs, oakmoss, oboists, oocysts, opossum, opposes, orisons, osmious, osmoles, osmosed, osmoses, osmosis, osseous, ostoses, ostosis, podsols, poisons, roosers, roscoes, saloons, saloops, schmoos, schools, scroops, shnooks, sholoms, simooms, simoons, skidoos, smooths, snoozes, solanos, solions, soloist, sooners, soonest, soothes, sorbose, sordors, sorghos, soroses, sorosis, sorrows, soursop, sponson, sponsor, squoosh, stolons, stooges, tootses, tosspot, tsooris, volosts, whoosis, woopses, wooshes. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)53 6F 2D 73 6F |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
|
Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010011 01101111 00101101 01110011 01101111 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)S o - s o |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0053 006F 002D 0073 006F |
Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)5381158581 |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Quotations: Familiar 7. Usage Frequency 8. Cities | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Derivations 11. Anagrams 12. Orthography | 13. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
