trice
/trʌɪs
/noun (in phrase in a trice)
In a moment; very quickly: in a trice, she had flown up the stairs...
- It runs extremely quickly and can appear to vanish in a trice.
- If only she'd said ‘All right - I'll go to Mass ‘, she'd have been out in a trice.’
- As before, the facilitator grasped my objection in a trice, and even though I sense that she's inclined to side with the material, she gets it.
Synonyms
in a moment, in a minute, in a second, shortly, any minute, any minute now, in a short time, (very) soon, in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, in a flash, in (less than) no time, in no time at all, before you know it, before long;
very quickly, swiftly, without delay, at once, straight away, right away, directly;
North American momentarily
informal in a jiffy, in a nanosecond, in two shakes, in two shakes of a lamb's tail, before you can say Jack Robinson, in the blink of an eye, in a blink, in the wink of an eye, in a wink, before you can say knife
British informal in a tick, in two ticks, in a mo
North American informal in a snap
Origin
Late Middle English trice 'a tug', figuratively 'an instant', from Middle Dutch trīsen 'pull sharply', related to trīse 'pulley'.
Unlike most tri- words, trice has nothing to do with ‘three’. It comes from early Dutch trisen ‘to pull sharply, hoist’, and in the Middle Ages at a trice meant ‘at one pull or tug’ rather than ‘in a moment, immediately’. By the late 17th century the original form of the expression had given way to the more familiar in a trice.