Satisfactory means good enough to meet a requirement or expectation, but nothing special beyond that. When your teacher marks your work as satisfactory, you've done what was asked and earned a passing grade, but you haven't gone above and beyond. If a restaurant meal is satisfactory, it fills you up and tastes fine, but you probably won't tell all your friends about it.

The word sits in an interesting middle space. It's clearly better than unsatisfactory or failing, but it falls short of excellent or outstanding. When a doctor says a patient's recovery is progressing in a satisfactory manner, that's genuinely good news: things are going as they should. But when a report card says your performance is satisfactory, there's an unspoken suggestion that you could achieve more.

In everyday use, calling something satisfactory often carries a hint of “just okay.” If someone asks how your pizza was and you say it was satisfactory, they'll understand you weren't impressed. The word describes adequacy rather than excellence: you got what you needed, but not what might have delighted you.