down and dirty
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Unfair or unscrupulous, using any means to win
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
không công bằng hoặc vô liêm sỉ, sử dụng mọi phương tiện để thắng
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: physically dirty and disheveled, as if having been knocked down
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Even so, few companies have embraced it with the down - and - dirty relish of Converse — another spot features a girl getting the brand's logo tatooed on her bottom.
Never mind your down - and - dirty, hands - on, feel - the - response nonsense for me.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed on Wikipedia “Irreversible binomial” (CC BY-SA 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-29). Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “down and dirty” mean?
Unfair or unscrupulous, using any means to win Literally: physically dirty and disheveled, as if having been knocked down
Is “down and dirty” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.