lick and a promise
- idiom
- UK
:
hacer algo a medias
- She gave the car a quick wash, knowing it was merely a lick and a promise before the road trip.
Examples
-
Cleaning the house was just a lick and a promise; I planned to do a thorough job later.
-
Go ahead, ask anyone, and they'll tell you the man is paying very close attention to who writes down his name in his book like there's something in it he is proud of and who puts down a name like the whole deal from start to finish was just a lick and a promise.
Fiction book (1992) -
To just give it fifteen minutes a day is a lick and a promise.
Academic text (2017) -
His presentation felt like a lick and a promise, lacking the depth and detail expected.
How Thorough
Surface Forms
Morphology
The components 'lick' (a quick touch) and 'promise' (an assurance of future action) provide a partial cue that something was done briefly with an intention to return to it, but the specific noun phrase 'lick and a promise' is an idiomatic phrasing whose full meaning (‘a quick, superficial job done hurriedly’) is not directly predictable from the parts by an average B1 learner. The expression therefore has a detectable metaphorical link to its constituents yet remains phraseologically conventional and not fully compositional.
Etymology
Lick and a promise may come from the idea of giving something just a quick lick, like a single brush of paint or a fast wipe, and making a promise to finish it later. That's why it means 'a quick, not thorough job'.