notch below

Not as good as something else in the same category. Joanne is a good author, but her books are a notch below best-sellers in the same genre.

notch below (someone or something)

Fig. a little lower in quality than someone or something. I believe that this wine is a notch below the one we had with the fish.

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Grwn	-	Welsh
Leopoldo	le-o-POL-do (Spanish)	Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Mihael	-	Slovene, Croatian
Lauri	LOW-ree	Finnish
Steele	[sti:l]
Fidelia	[fi'di:ljə]