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Jul 3, 2024
This week’s theme
Americanisms

This week’s words
cracker-barrel
jamboree
lickety-split
ripstaver
hunky-dory

lickety-split
Illustration: Anu Garg + AI

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lickety-split

PRONUNCIATION:
(lik-uh-tee-SPLIT)

MEANING:
adverb: At great speed.

ETYMOLOGY:
A fanciful formation from lick (fast) + split. Earliest documented use: 1859.

USAGE:
“‘There’s a wind high up in the pines,’ said Nell. ...
‘And the windmill’s goin lickety-split,’ said Howard.”
Mary O’Hara; My Friend Flicka; Lippincott; 1941.

See more usage examples of lickety-split in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Now I can look at you in peace; I don't eat you any more. -Franz Kafka, novelist (3 Jul 1883-1924) [while admiring fish in an aquarium]

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