no great shakes

1. Nothing out of the ordinary, mediocre, as in I'm afraid the new pitcher is no great shakes, or What I did with this decorating project was no great shakes. This term possibly alludes to the shaking of dice, which most often yields a mediocre result, but there is no evidence to support this theory. [Early 1800s]

Example Sentences

Its overall handling of mental illness is no great shakes either.

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Their two previous quarterfinal duels at Roland Garros were actually no great shakes.

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A third of the way in, we’ve already seen Kong use sign language, shower and scratch himself; Godzilla lay waste to a swath of Pensacola, Fla.; and the two wage a slugfest at sea, with Godzilla’s tail slicing through ships and Kong, no great shakes as a swimmer, struggling mightily out of his element.

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It could be described as no great shakes.

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We do know that close-ups on nibbled waterlogged corpses are no great shakes these days, and we encounter them in the premiere of "Clarice" . . . but not before flashbacks showing Buffalo Bill sewing what is supposed to be the lotioned skin of his victims.

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Related Words

• common 
• conventional 
• dull 
• generic 
• humble 
• mediocre 
• normal 
• plain 
• simple 
• unremarkable 
• workaday