slipshod

adjective

slip·shod ˈslip-ˈshäd

Synonyms of slipshod next

: wearing loose shoes or slippers

: down at the heel : shabby

: careless, slovenly

Did you know?

The word shod is the past tense form of the verb shoe, meaning "to furnish with a shoe"; hence, we can speak of shoeing horses and horses that have been shod or shodden. When the word slipshod was first used in the late 1500s, it meant "wearing loose shoes or slippers"—such slippers were once called slip-shoes—and later it was used to describe shoes that were falling apart. By the early 1800s, slipshod was used more generally as a synonym for shabby—in 1818, Sir Walter Scott wrote about "the half-bound and slip-shod volumes of the circulating library." The association with shabbiness then shifted to an association with sloppiness, and the word was used to mean "careless" or "slovenly."

Examples of slipshod in a Sentence

He did a slipshod job. Her scholarship is slipshod at best.

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Republican poll watching during the 2020 Presidential election was something of a slipshod endeavor, more of a last-minute suggestion than a concerted effort; this year, the R.N.C. and the Trump campaign celebrated National Poll Watcher Week. —

Antonia Hitchens, The New Yorker, 19 Oct. 2024 Macias said Scott Anderson had two to three drinks and that Disney did an incomplete and slipshod investigation, with no Breathalyzer or blood tests and no videos of Anderson’s behavior that night. —

Christopher Goffard, Los Angeles Times, 4 Sep. 2024 At the same time, his work was cynical, impersonal, lazy and, at times, slipshod. —

Victoria Dalkey, Sacramento Bee, 31 Jan. 2024 The end of the campaign was as slipshod as its beginning. —

Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 22 Jan. 2024 See all Example Sentences for slipshod