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The word shod is the past tense form of the verb shoe, meaning "to furnish with a shoe"; hence, we can speak of shoeing horses and horses that have been shod or shodden. When the word slipshod was first used in the late 1500s, it meant "wearing loose shoes or slippers"—such slippers were once called slip-shoes—and later it was used to describe shoes that were falling apart. By the early 1800s, slipshod was used more generally as a synonym for shabby—in 1818, Sir Walter Scott wrote about "the half-bound and slip-shod volumes of the circulating library." The association with shabbiness then shifted to an association with sloppiness, and the word was used to mean "careless" or "slovenly."

Examples of slipshod in a Sentence

He did a slipshod job. Her scholarship is slipshod at best.

Recent Examples on the Web That seemed like such a bogus excuse for their slipshod way of [00:10:00] doing what is a noble thing. — Laura Johnston, cleveland, 9 May 2022 Its response to demands for more content moderation have been slipshod and inconsistent, but are still better than the alternative of doing nothing. — Alex Shephard, The New Republic, 5 Apr. 2022 Hanken thinks Thorius tolerates slipshod wrist bones because the animals’ bodies are so small that the forces on their joints are minuscule. — Douglas Fox, Scientific American, 1 Feb. 2022 The history of nuclear power in America is one of rushed and slipshod engineering, unwarranted assurances of public safety, political influence and financial chicanery, inept and duplicitous regulators, and mismanagement on a grand scale. — Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 6 Jan. 2022 Franco, racing through an 85-minute marathon of misery, resorts to a kind of dramatic shorthand — at once viscerally gripping and intellectually slipshod — that leans heavily on other frames of cinematic reference. — Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times, 20 May 2021 At the time, the O.J. Simpson trial was generating daily headlines detailing allegations of slipshod police work, and Garland did not want an Oklahoma City investigation to be criticized in the same way. — Del Quentin Wilber Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 21 Feb. 2021 Although immensely lucrative, his licensing methods were often viewed as excessive, slipshod and greedy. — Washington Post, 29 Dec. 2020 Where France continues to go wrong, apparently, is in its slipshod enforcement of justice and fairness for all people. — WSJ, 4 Dec. 2020 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'slipshod.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.