before you can say Jack Robinson

Idioms  

1. Also, quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. Almost immediately, very soon, as in I'll finish this book before you can say Jack Robinson. This expression originated in the 1700s, but the identity of Jack Robinson has been lost. Grose's Classical Dictionary (1785) said he was a man who paid such brief visits to acquaintances that there was scarcely time to announce his arrival before he had departed, but it gives no further documentation. A newer version is before you know it, meaning so soon that you don't have time to become aware of it (as in He'll be gone before you know it).

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

before you can say Jack Robinson

Both of them start real, real small and then ... woop, zoop, sloop ... before you can say Jack Robinson they’ve gone and grown a lot bigger than you ever thought they could.

From "Bud, Not Buddy" by Christopher Paul Curtis

"Give me the word and I'll have the nippers on him before you can say Jack Robinson."

From Brave Tom The Battle That Won by Edward Sylvester Ellis

"I'll be ready before you can say Jack Robinson!"

From Nell, of Shorne Mills or, One Heart's Burden by Charles Garvice

Look at him now—he's on the quarterdeck and will be down in the cabins before you can say Jack Robinson.

From Agatha Webb by Anna Katharine Green

Are you—" "When the time comes, Simmy," said she cryptically, "I will hold out my hand to him, and then we'll have a real man before you can say Jack Robinson.

From From the Housetops by F. Graham Cootes