Word.ws English Dictionary

close enough for government work

close enough for government work adjective: adequate; acceptable as government work, imperfect but not worth the time nor effort of improving.

Adjective

close enough for government work (not comparable)

  1. (US, derogatory, humorous, idiomatic) Adequate; acceptable as government work, imperfect but not worth the time nor effort of improving.
  2. (Canada, humorous, idiomatic) Acceptable; equivalent to government work, neither worse nor better.

Synonyms of close enough for government work

Questions about close enough for government work

What does close enough for government work mean?
Close enough for government work means adequate; acceptable as government work, imperfect but not worth the time nor effort of improving.
What part of speech is close enough for government work?
Close enough for government work is an adjective.

Words near close enough for government work in the dictionary

  1. close communion
  2. close down
  3. close encounter
  4. close encounters
  5. close enough
  6. close enough for government work
  7. close enough for horseshoes and hand grenades
  8. close fertilization
  9. close for press
  10. close harmony
  11. close helm

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: close enough for government work (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-close enough for government work.ogg.

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