half-assed
See also: halfassed
English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Possibly a humorous mispronunciation of haphazard.[1]
Pronunciation
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈhæfæst/, /hæfˈæst/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Adjective
half-assed (comparative more half-assed, superlative most half-assed)
- (slang, vulgar) Poorly or incompetently done; desultory.
- Synonyms: half-ass, narrow-assed
- Coordinate terms: quarter-assed, whole-ass
- Near-synonym: halfhearted
- a half-assed attempt at something
- 2017 December 1, Tom Breihan, “Mad Max: Fury Road might already be the best action movie ever made”, in The Onion AV Club[1], archived from the original on 7 March 2022:
- We’ve been settling for half-assed bullshit for too long.
Derived terms
Translations
poorly or incompetently done — see also half-ass
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Verb
- simple past and past participle of half-ass
See also
References
- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “half-assed”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
Further reading
- “half-assed adj.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present.
- Eric Partridge (2005), “half-assed”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, volume 1 (A–I), London; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 949.