quick-and-dirty

See also: quick and dirty

English

Alternative forms

• quick and dirty

Etymology

The Oxford English Dictionary shows the first usage of this phrase in 1896 in the Boston Globe to describe a place to eat. The first use meaning "slipshod" was from 1939 in the gun-slinging, American Western fiction paperback, "Bounty Guns" by Luke Short.

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

  (file)

Adjective

quick-and-dirty (comparative more quick-and-dirty, superlative most quick-and-dirty)

1. (idiomatic) Done or constructed in a hasty, approximate, temporarily adequate manner, but not exact, fully formed, or reliable for a long period of time.

   I can do a quick-and-dirty market analysis in time for the meeting tomorrow.

Synonyms

• slipshod

Translations

hasty, approximate, temporarily adequate

• French: quick-and-dirty (fr)
• German: ^{(please verify)} schnell und schmutzig
• Polish: zgrubny m, zgrubna f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Russian: на скорую руку (ru) (na skoruju ruku), на коленке (ru) (na kolenke) (informal), грубый (ru) m (grubyj) (literally "rough"), халтурный (ru) m (xalturnyj) (literally "sloppy")
• Turkish: ^{(please verify)} hızlı ve dikkatsizce

Noun

quick-and-dirty (plural quick-and-dirties)

1. (US, slang) An inexpensive, inelegant eatery; a greasy spoon.
2. (idiomatic) A quick, temporary fix, estimate, or the like.

   The car broke down but we managed to do a quick-and-dirty and were back on the road in fifteen minutes.

See also

• rough-and-ready
• shake and bake

References

• “quick-and-dirty”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.