hackwork

American  

[hak-wurk] / ˈhækˌwɜrk /

noun

1. writing, painting, or any professional work done for hire and usually following a formula rather than being motivated by any creative impulse.

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hackwork British  

/ ˈhækˌwɜːk /

noun

1. undistinguished literary work produced to order

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Etymology

Origin of hackwork

First recorded in 1850–55; hack ² + work

Example Sentences

Ma isn’t a bad movie, and it’s sure as hell not trying to be a good one, but it scratches a particular itch that neither noble failures nor cranked-out hackwork can touch.

From Slate • May 29, 2019

An initially clever exercise winds up feeling like the wrong kind of hackwork.

From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 19, 2018

This is largely how today’s culture has chosen to remember Welles: as a pompous wreck, a man who peaked early and then devolved into hackwork and bloated fiascos.

From The New Yorker • Dec. 7, 2015

The Pat Hobby stories lack Fitzgerald’s characteristic lyricism, and perhaps for that might be read as mercenary or hackwork; but what they lack in beauty, they make up for in wit and pathos.

From Salon • Jun. 9, 2013

He who was meditating the erection of an enduring creation, such as the world "would not willingly let die," was content to occupy himself with the most ephemeral of all hackwork.

From Milton by Pattison, Mark