less than stellar

A form of less-than-stellar — Mediocre; not satisfactory; not very good, poor; not meeting standards or expectations.

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Meanings

adjectiveless than stellar (comparative form only)
  1. alternativecomparative onlyAlternative form of less-than-stellar, especially in a predicative position as opposed to an attributive position.

    Friday night’s performance was less than stellar.

    3 more examples

    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.

    1931, Music and Dance, volume 21, Melbourne, Vic.: Australian Musical News Pub. Co., →OCLC, page 27, column 2

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

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

    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
Cite this entry
APA

less than stellar. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/less%20than%20stellar

MLA

“less than stellar.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/less%20than%20stellar. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “less than stellar,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/less%20than%20stellar.

Source: less than stellar on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.