quick-and-dirty
"quick-and-dirty" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“quick-and-dirty” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as an adjective - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Done or constructed in a hasty, approximate, temporarily adequate manner, but not exact, fully formed, or reliable for a long period of time.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | quick-and-dirty |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “quick-and-dirty” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for quick-and-dirty is 15 letters long, classified as an adjective. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Done or constructed in a hasty, approximate, temporarily adequate manner, but not exact, fully formed, or reliable for a long period of time.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for quick-and-dirty, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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. The correct English form is quick-and-dirty, spelled Q-U-I-C-K---A-N-D---D-I-R-T-Y.
Definition
- 1Done or constructed in a hasty, approximate, temporarily adequate manner, but not exact, fully formed, or reliable for a long period of time.
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.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “quick-and-dirty”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is Q-U-I-C-K---A-N-D---D-I-R-T-Y - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.