lick and a promise

English

Noun

a lick and a promise

(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.

Translations

hasty completion of a task

Finnish: hutaisu
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