Idiom: Quick-And-Dirty
Meanings
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.
How to pronounce "quick-and-dirty":
AU
Done or constructed in a hasty, approximate, temporarily adequate manner, but not exact, fully formed, or reliable for a long period of time.
An inexpensive, inelegant eatery; a greasy spoon.
A quick, temporary fix, estimate, or the like.
Example Sentences
1
Let's do a quick-and-dirty analysis to get a rough estimate of the costs.
2
I don't have time to make a polished presentation, so I'll just give a quick-and-dirty overview.
3
We need to do some quick-and-dirty editing to meet the deadline.
4
The programmer wrote a quick-and-dirty code just to test the functionality.
5
I'll give you a quick-and-dirty explanation of the process, but for more details, refer to the manual.
