Word.ws English Dictionary

spit-and-sawdust

spit-and-sawdust adjective: of a bar, pub, etc. having a basic, traditional appearance and rudimentary facilities.

Adjective

spit-and-sawdust (not comparable)

  1. (colloquial) Of a bar, pub, etc. having a basic, traditional appearance and rudimentary facilities.

Origin of spit-and-sawdust

Since old drinking establishments might have had sawdust on the floor that patrons could spit on.

Questions about spit-and-sawdust

What does spit-and-sawdust mean?
Spit-and-sawdust means of a bar, pub, etc. having a basic, traditional appearance and rudimentary facilities.
What part of speech is spit-and-sawdust?
Spit-and-sawdust is an adjective.

Words near spit-and-sawdust in the dictionary

  1. spit valve
  2. spit venom
  3. spit wad
  4. spit wads
  5. spit-and-polish
  6. spit-and-sawdust
  7. spit-ball
  8. spit-balls
  9. spit-cup
  10. spit-cups
  11. spit-fire

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: spit-and-sawdust (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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Cite this entry: “spit-and-sawdust.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spit-and-sawdust. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.