rough and ready

comparative more rough and ready · superlative most rough and ready · alternative rough-and-ready

1. idiomaticCrude or unpolished, but still fit for use; good enough.

   There was a rough and ready rule-of-thumb test of truth[…]

   1873–1884 (date written), Samuel Butler, chapter LXV, in R[ichard] A[lexander] Streatfeild, editor, The Way of All Flesh, London: Grant Richards, published 1903, →OCLC, page 291

   4 more examples

   [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.

   1849, James Fenimore Cooper, chapter 15, in The Sea Lions

   The wooden jetty on the East Pier had become worm-eaten and was demolished, but the Admiralty lent an old hulk to serve as a rough-and-ready packet facility.

   1960 May 28, K. A. Murray, “Carlisle Pier, Dun Laoghaire”, in Railway Magazine, page 302

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

   1996 December 4, Roderick Conway Morris, “10 Years of Enlightenment: An Unusual Orchestra Celebrates”, in New York Times, retrieved 04 Jun 2014

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

   2004 November 8, Michael D. Lemonick, Bryan Walsh, “How We Grew So Big”, in Time, retrieved 04 Jun 2014

1. A census-designated place in Nevada County, California, United States.