lick and a promise
English
Noun
- (idiomatic) The hasty or incomplete performance of a task.
- 1955, Max Shulman, Robert Paul Smith, The Tender Trap: A Comedy, page 14:
- Now this is not the way to get a house in order. What this place needs is a real thorough old-fashioned cleaning. A lick and a promise won't do, no, sir!
- 2000, Mary Higgins Clark, While My Pretty One Sleeps:
- The snowplows had made what Myles would call a lick-and-a-promise attempt to partially clear the accumulated snow from West End Avenue.
- 2014 May 22, “EDITORIAL: India's Modi wins voter mandate for economic growth”, in Washington Times:
- Rising out of poverty will require not a lick and a promise but deep reform.
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Translations
hasty completion of a task
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