above par
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Better than average or expected
Literally: above the average score in golf
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The jeans maker's bonds are trading above par, even in a badly depressed market.
Yet, as it happened, he was registering well above par that evening, for three of the four ideas he had formulated were finally to prove wholly correct.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “above par” mean?
Better than average or expected Literally: above the average score in golf
Is “above par” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.