at once
Idioms-
At the same time, as in We can't all fit into the boat at once . [First half of 1200s] Also see at one time , def. 1.
-
Immediately, as in Mother told the children to come inside at once . [First half of 1500s]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Baeli says, like most people, she could not fund everything at once and decided to carry out the work in stages over ten years to spread the cost.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
I’m reminded of “The Odyssey,” which felt, to me, crushed by its own ambition, hoping to be everything at once simply because it could be.
From Salon ● Aug. 20, 2026
Taalas says running a million tokens on the HC1 would cost 0.75 cents, against 3.79 cents on an Nvidia GPU configured to serve as many users at once as possible.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 20, 2026
Recognizing that China isn’t a monolith, Deng Xiaoping’s “Reform and Opening Up” didn’t attempt to transform China’s entire economy at once.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 18, 2026
All at once the big monkey stopped squalling and the bottoms got as still as a graveyard.
From "Summer of the Monkeys" by Wilson Rawls
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
