bush-league
[boo sh-leeg]
- inferior or amateurish; mediocre: a bush-league theatrical performance.
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Origin of bush-league
An Americanism dating back to 1905–10
bush league
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Origin of bush league
An Americanism dating back to 1905–10
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for bush-league
Contemporary Examples
Neither is it some bush-league Johnny-come-lately gathering with C-list speakers and a shoe-string budget.
Historical Examples
“Al” nodded knowingly, and the whole thing was a pantomime, a wordless play, that made Sumurun look like a bush-league production.
Pitching in a PinchChristy Mathewson
Word Origin and History for bush-league
bush league
adj.
"mean, petty, unprofessional," 1906, from baseball slang for the small-town baseball clubs below the minor league where talent was developed (by 1903), from bush (n.) in the slang sense of "rural, provincial," which originally was not a value judgment.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper