par for the course

Idioms  

1. An average or normal amount; just what one might expect. For example, I missed three questions, but that's par for the course. This term comes from golf, where it refers to the number of strokes needed by an expert golfer to finish the entire course. Its figurative use for other kinds of expectation dates from the second half of the 1900s.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

par for the course

When bouts of dissociation started to become par for the course, wearing hardware reminded me I was in a body on planet Earth.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 12, 2026

The city typically publishes an annual tax roll of all property owners, and real-estate attorneys say the information included is par for the course.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

This may have been England's best World Cup for 60 years, but at best it was par for the course and at worst a failure.

From BBC ● Jul. 19, 2026

These findings are pretty much par for the course.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 17, 2026

They weren’t particularly good-looking teeth, but that was par for the course during this time period.

From "Glitch" by Laura Martin

Related Words

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