slipshod

English edit

WOTD – 21 August 2008

slip + shod (“wearing shoes”), originally "wearing slippers", "slovenly" is from early 19th century.

slipshod (comparative more slipshod, superlative most slipshod)

Done poorly or too quickly; slapdash.
- 1880, Mark Twain, The Awful German Language:
  Surely there is not another language that is so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp.
- 1999 August 22, Johanna McGeary, “Buried Alive”, in Time:
  Newspapers pointed at greedy contractors who used shoddy materials, slipshod methods and the help of corrupt officials to bypass building codes.
(obsolete) Wearing slippers or similarly open shoes.
- 1840, Charles Dickens, Barnaby Rudge, Chapter 67:
  [T]hey wandered up and down hardly remembering the ways untrodden by their feet so long, and crying [...] as they slunk off in their rags, and dragged their slipshod feet along the pavement.
- 1870, Bret Harte, From a Back Window:
  That glossy, well-brushed individual, who lets himself in with a latch-key at the front door at night, is a very different being from the slipshod wretch who growls of mornings for hot water at the door of the kitchen.

done poorly or too quickly