below par
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Not meeting the usual standard or expectation
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
không đáp ứng tiêu chuẩn hoặc kỳ vọng thông thường
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: under the average or expected level
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
But performances have been consistently below par for too long and drastic action needs to be taken.
This stock will be redeemed at par on 19 May 1999.
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 “below par” mean?
Not meeting the usual standard or expectation Literally: under the average or expected level
Is “below par” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.