Half-cock

adv

adv ·2 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    confusion resulting from lack of preparation wordnet
Adverb
  1. 1
    Not with full vigour, half-heartedly. UK

    "Certain progress, however, has been made, such as using Alan Knottto help England's wicket-keepers, for instance, while other 'specialist' coaches have been employed thanks to the Whittingdale scheme. But, until now, so much of this has been done half-cock."

Example

More examples

"Certain progress, however, has been made, such as using Alan Knottto help England's wicket-keepers, for instance, while other 'specialist' coaches have been employed thanks to the Whittingdale scheme. But, until now, so much of this has been done half-cock."

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.