slapdash means produced or carried out hastily; haphazard; careless. It carries an Arena rating of 1671, earned across 5 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, slapdash ranks #536 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #719 of 42,747 for Qualifying, #980 of 17,126 for Most Satisfying to Say, #1,075 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words.
slapdash is pronounced /ˈslæpdæʃ/.
Why “slapdash” is a great word
Done or made hastily, carelessly, and without attention to detail. From the adverb 'slap' (with a blow, suddenly) and 'dash' (to throw or strike with force), first attested in the late 17th century. Unlike slipshod, which implies a shabby result from neglect, or haphazard, which suggests a random absence of method, slapdash connotes a deliberate but reckless speed of execution. It is the hurried brushstroke that ruins a portrait, the nail hammered in crooked because the swing was too ardent, the love letter scrawled in a fervor and sent without being read—a testament to the tragedy of good intentions undone by hurried hands.
Etymology
From slap + dash. First attested in the late 17th century, meaning "careless".
adj
- Produced or carried out hastily; haphazard; careless.e.g.“They had seen Poland, and that was the sort of slovenly, slapdash place they were used to, but once across the German frontier they found everything—crops, roads, buildings—uncannily different.” — 1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 114:
adv
- In a hasty or careless manner.
- Directly, right there; slap-bang.e.g.“Van Eyck signed his portrait of the Arnolfinis slapdash in the center of the painting.”
- With a slap; all at once; slap.e.g.“And yet, slap dash, is all again
In every sinew, nerve, and vein;
Runs here and there, like Hamlet's ghost” — 1718, Mat[thew] Prior, “Alma: Or, The Progress of the Mind”, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: […] Jacob Tonson […], and John Barber […], →OCLC:
verb
- To apply, or apply something to, in a hasty, careless, or rough manner; to roughcast.e.g.“to slapdash mortar or paint on a wall”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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