rough and ready

rough and ready

See also: rough-and-ready

English

Alternative forms

• rough-and-ready

Adjective

rough and ready (comparative more rough and ready, superlative most rough and ready)

1. (idiomatic, often hyphenated when placed immediately before the modified noun) Crude or unpolished, but still fit for use; good enough.
   • 1849, James Fenimore Cooper, The Sea Lions, ch. 15:

     [A] dozen Americans could, at any time, construct a house, the ‘rough and ready’ habits of the people usually teaching them, in a rude way, a good deal of a great many other arts, besides this of the carpenter.

   • 1903, Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, ch. 65:

     There was a rough and ready rule-of-thumb test of truth.

   • 1996 Dec. 4, Roderick Conway Morris, "10 Years of Enlightenment: An Unusual Orchestra Celebrates," New York Times (retrieved 4 June 2014):

     "Things were a lot more rough and ready, but there was a kind of raw beauty about it."

   • 2004 Nov. 8, Michael D. Lemonick and Bryan Walsh, "How We Grew So Big," Time (retrieved 4 June 2014):

     Doctors define overweight and obesity by a rough-and-ready measurement called the body mass index (BMI).

See also

• diamond in the rough
• quick-and-dirty
• rough around the edges