middle course

plural middle courses

1. A middle way or manner; a mean or middle path between extremes.

   Wisdom, becried on either hand, will steer very nicely a middle course between these extremes; allowing here, forbidding there.

   1909, Harrington Sainsbury, Drugs and the drug habit

   5 more examples

   He slept the sleep of the just, with just that gentle whisper of a snore which Aristotle hints at to prove that virtue being, as she must be, in the mean, doth in the neutral third of life maintain a middle course between loud snore and silent slumber.

   1876, R[ichard] D[oddridge] Blackmore, “So is Mr. Sharp”, in Cripps, the Carrier. A Woodland Tale. […], volume I, London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, […], →OCLC, page 169

   There was no middle course for Richard's comrades between high friendship or absolute slavery. He was deficient in those cosmopolite habits and feelings which enable boys and men to hold together without caring much for each other; and, like every insulated mortal, he attributed the deficiency, of which he was quite aware, to the fact of his possessing a superior nature.

   1859, George Meredith, chapter 15, in The Ordeal of Richard Feverel. A History of Father and Son. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC

   But for men of principle and honour and straightforward thought there could be no middle course and no paltering with petty issues of party or parochial advantage.

   1918 February 1, Daniel Desmond Sheehan, “Why I Joined The Army”, in Daily Express, London

   Instead of the middle course which had been followed by previous statesmen, he struck off on a new line, veering well to starboard, and avoiding the cranks, the experts and the sentimentalists on the port side.

   2010, Harold Nicolson, Why Britain is at War

   That he managed to alienate both progressives and traditionalists in the pews reveals the middle course he tried to chart, ultimately satisfying neither group in an increasingly polarised 1.2 billion-strong institution.

   2025 April 21, Peter Stanford, “Pope Francis obituary”, in The Guardian

   Synonyms: midway