敷衍了事

fū yǎn liǎo shì

to do something half-heartedly

Character by character

敷fū
perfunctory

衍yǎn
perfunctory

了liǎo
finish

事shì
matter

这份报告写得太随便了，明显是敷衍了事。

This report is so sloppy it’s clearly a box-ticking job.

Tone: negative (criticism).

Doing just enough to get it off your plate; 了 is liǎo here.

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