An early recorded use of slapdash comes from 17th-century British poet and dramatist John Dryden, who used it as an adverb in his play The Kind Keeper. "Down I put the notes slap-dash," he wrote. The Oxford English Dictionary defines this sense, in part, as "with, or as with, a slap and a dash," perhaps suggesting the notion of an action (such as painting) performed with quick, imprecise movements. The adjective slapdash is familiar today describing something done in a hasty, careless, or haphazard manner.
the police department's investigation of the charges against the mayor was slapdash and not very thorough
Recent Examples on the WebBut without state licenses, the shops were playing by their own set of rules — no testing, slapdash labeling, no taxes — which even the staunchest legalization advocates feared could choke out the nascent legal industry.—Nicholas Fandos, New York Times, 12 Apr. 2024 The internet tends to flatten all that, though; a casual user might not know the difference between a trusted source and a slapdash amateur.—Drew Harwell, Washington Post, 7 Mar. 2024 How about to public peace? Aid groups say the Taliban are not equipped for the wave of returnees, who have been pouring out of Pakistan and into slapdash relocation camps near the Torkham and Chaman border crossings.—Hasan Ali, The Christian Science Monitor, 8 Nov. 2023 Their brand was chaos: live shows that were transcendent or tragicomic depending on the drugs involved; albums that interpolated brilliant Stones-adjacent youth anthems and devastating country weepers with slapdash Kiss covers and improvised jams where no one played their actual instrument.—Elizabeth Nelson, The New Yorker, 21 Sep. 2023 In other words, the seemingly slapdash style requires more effort than merely embracing the elements.—Zoe Ruffner, Vogue, 18 July 2023 That's a very slapdash view of one of the most important exercises in your fitness arsenal.—Brett Williams, Men's Health, 31 May 2023 Equally nonchalant were the artfully messy manes at Chanel, created by James Pecis, which felt more effortlessly Parisian than the slapdash British equivalent.—Tish Weinstock, Vogue, 8 Mar. 2023 At least four other Americans remain detained in Venezuela, including two former Green Berets involved in a slapdash attempt to oust Maduro in 2019, and two men who, like Khan, were detained for allegedly entering the country illegally from neighboring Colombia.—Eric Tucker, BostonGlobe.com, 1 Oct. 2022
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'slapdash.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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