down-and-dirty
adjective
unscrupulous; nasty.
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down-and-dirty
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down and dirty
down and dirtyadjectiveruthlessly competitive or underhand
down-and-dirty
American
[doun-uhn-dur-tee]
/ ˈdaʊn ənˈdɜr ti /
adjective
Informal.
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unscrupulous; nasty.
a down-and-dirty election campaign.
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earthy; funky.
down and dirty
British
adjective
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ruthlessly competitive or underhand
if Bush gets down and dirty the Governor will give as good as he gets
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uninhibited; frank
down and dirty
Idioms
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Vicious, not governed by rules of decency, as in The candidates are getting down and dirty early in the campaign . [ Slang ; early 1980s]
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Very earthy, uninhibitedly sexual. For example, “L.A. club people rarely get down and dirty on a dance floor” ( The New Yorker , May 21, 1990). [Late 1980s]
Etymology
Origin of down-and-dirty
First recorded in 1985–90
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In a series rife with story angles and subplots — alleged cheap shots perpetrated by each team, off-ice drama, injuries — it was good, old-fashioned down-and-dirty hockey that mesmerized most thoroughly.
From Seattle Times • Apr. 30, 2023
But they did make it onto the stage, backed by a string quartet and tearing through the down-and-dirty riffs of their opening number, Smile.
From BBC • Jun. 24, 2022
All those recordings are in this eight-disc box, a set that highlights the duo’s knack for lullabies, legends and down-and-dirty country.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 30, 2020
Still, for down-and-dirty “war medicine,” as he calls it, nothing matches what he went through in the first months of Covid-19 in New York City.
From New York Times • Jul. 9, 2020
Wood got involved in a down-and-dirty lawsuit with the Cooke capitalists.
From The Hacker Crackdown, law and disorder on the electronic frontier by Sterling, Bruce
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
