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What's the meaning of the phrase 'A lick and a promise'? A cursory effort, for instance at painting or tidying up. It alludes to the perfunctory washing performed by children.
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N – A Lick And A Promise by Gillian. E. Shaw This poemstates how, he, along with his wife, worked to wash the clothes and did the domestic chores. It seems to him a lick and promise type of chores as they did everything at the spot. However, by the end of the day when everything was done, it seemed to them that they had removed a big hurdle. Howeve...
Lick and a Promiseby Aerosmith This is lyric sung by Aerosmith narrates the storyof Johnny, who is fascinated by seeing women engaged in love and parties. He lives a typical rock and roll lifestyle without being serious about life. The use of ‘a lick and a promise’ shows that Johnny does all his job carelessly, including his relationship with the l...
From the Story “The Old House at Home” by Joseph Mitchell from The New Yorker This is the classic story of old John McSorley, who owns a bar in New York. The writer, Mitchell, describes the atmosphereof the bar in this paragraph using this phrase in the first line. The use of this phrase shows the hasty work done by McSorley before welcoming his cu...
The meaning of A LICK AND A PROMISE is a quick and careless attempt to do something. How to use a lick and a promise in a sentence.
The oddball phrase “a lick and a promise” is meant to describe someone doing a quick and superficial job with the full intention of coming back to it at a later date to finish it better or more thoroughly.
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If you give something a lick and a promise, you clean it very quickly and not very well, but intend to do it more thoroughly later. There was only time in the morning for a lick and a promise. I just gave the kitchen floor a lick and a promise.
A lick and a promise is a British colloquialism for a cursory, superficial and half-hearted effort and dates from the mid-19th century. It derives from lick meaning a cursory, half-hearted effort at having a wash or a small quantity (as in a lick of paint) together with the promise to do better next time.
A hasty, careless, or superficial effort. I told the intern to give the proofreading a lick and a promise, as we were supposed to have the book out weeks ago. I didn't have time to clean the entire house before my parents arrived, so I just did it with a lick and a promise.
