bush league

noun, Baseball.
1.
minor league.
Origin
1905-10, Americanism

bush-league

[boo sh-leeg] /ˈbʊʃˌlig/
adjective
1.
inferior or amateurish; mediocre:
a bush-league theatrical performance.
Origin
1905-10, Americanism
Word Origin and History for 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.

Slang definitions & phrases for bush league

bush league

adjective phrase

Mediocre; second-or third-rate; bush, small-time: a bush-league hoodlum/ Your ideas are invariably bush league

noun phrase
  1. A baseball minor league of professional or semiprofessional players (1908+)
  2. Any subordinate, apprentice, or amateur enterprise: The road companies are sometimes bush leagues for aspirants to Broadway (1908+)