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Jun 27, 2006

This week's theme
Words related to shoes

This week's words
calced
slipshod
gumshoe
cordwainer
goody_two-shoes

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slipshod

slipshod (SLIP-shod) adjective

1. Careless; sloppy; shabby.

2. Wearing loose shoes or slippers, especially those worn down at the heel.

[From slip (slide) + shod (wearing shoes), past and past participle of shoe.]

See more usage examples of slipshod in Vocabulary.com's dictionary.

The literal sense of this word (worn at the heel), now considered archaic, gave rise to the figurative sense (careless). The poet William Cowper used it in its original sense when he wrote these words in his 1781 poem entitled Truth:

"The shivering urchin, bending as he goes,
With slipshod heels ..."

"In the lawsuit, the government stands accused of slipshod land surveys, an exaggerated advertising campaign and breaking promises."
Yu Yoshitake; Broken Promises; Asahi Shimbun (Tokyo, Japan); Jun 7, 2006.

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