half-assed

See also: halfassed

English

Alternative forms

• half-arsed (UK, Ireland, Commonwealth)

Etymology

Possibly a humorous mispronunciation of haphazard.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhæfæst/, /hæfˈæst/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Adjective

half-assed (comparative more half-assed, superlative most half-assed)

1. (slang, vulgar) Poorly or incompetently done; desultory.

   Synonyms: half-ass, narrow-assed

   Coordinate terms: quarter-assed, whole-ass

   Near-synonym: halfhearted

   a half-assed attempt at something

   • 2017 December 1, Tom Breihan, “Mad Max: Fury Road might already be the best action movie ever made”, in The Onion AV Club‎^[1], archived from the original on 7 March 2022:

     We’ve been settling for half-assed bullshit for too long.

Derived terms

• half-assedly
• half-assedness

Translations

poorly or incompetently done — see also half-ass

• Finnish: juosten kustu, hutiloitu
• French: bâclé (fr), ni fait ni à faire (fr), à l'arrache (fr)
• German: schludrig
• Polish: niedorobiony, na pół gwizdka (pl)
• Portuguese: meia boca (pt)
• Tamil: அரைகுறை (ta) (araikuṟai)

Verb

half-assed

1. simple past and past participle of half-ass

See also

• half-baked
• half-cocked
• half-measure

Further reading

• “half-assed adj.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present.
• Eric Partridge (2005), “half-assed”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 1 (A–I), London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 949.