a lick and a promise
Preserved but no longer current.
Meaning · English
To give a lick and a promise to a piece of work is to do it in a hasty and superficial way — as a cat might give its dirty face one quick lick of its tongue with a promise of more cleaning later.
Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)
Sources & notes
Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.
Common questions
What does “a lick and a promise” mean?
To give a lick and a promise to a piece of work is to do it in a hasty and superficial way — as a cat might give its dirty face one quick lick of its tongue with a promise of more cleaning later.
Is “a lick and a promise” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.