quick-and-dirty
"quick-and-dirty" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“quick-and-dirty” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 15
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Done or constructed in a hasty, approximate, temporarily adequate manner, but not exact, fully formed, or reliable for a long period of time.
Corpus desk
Index EN-quick-and-dirty · quick-and-dirty · English
quick-and-dirty · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 15 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "Q" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | quick-and-dirty |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 15 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “quick-and-dirty” in English
Rare enough to double-check
quick-and-dirty is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "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.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how quick-and-dirty appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
I can do a quick-and-dirty market analysis in time for the meeting tomorrow.
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.