lickety-split

[lik-i-tee-split]

SEE MORE SYNONYMS FOR lickety-split ON THESAURUS.COM

adverb Informal.

at great speed; rapidly: to travel lickety-split.

Nearby words

Origin of lickety-split

1835–45, Americanism; perhaps dial. licket rag (for wiping in haste, with one lick) + -y¹ + split, as in split second

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for lickety-split

They must have seed the carriage drivin' away, and thought for sure it had the gal in it, and they was after it, lickety-split.
The Stories of the Three Burglars|Frank Richard Stockton
A man was coming down from the north, lickety-split on a roan with a rangy stride.
Curly|Roger Pocock
She thought her last-day was come, with the fences streaking past her lickety-split.
Across the Fruited Plain|Florence Crannell Means
On he fled, across the crisp fields, leaped the fence and struck the road, lickety-split!
Christmas Eve on Lonesome and Other Stories|John Fox, Jr.

And Beagle heard a noise he thought was a fox barking and he started for the tamarack swamp, lickety-split.
Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp|Annie Roe Carr

British Dictionary definitions for lickety-split

lickety-split

adverb

US and Canadian informal very quickly; speedily

Word Origin for lickety-split

C19: from lick + split

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for lickety-split

lickety-split

adj.

1852, American English (earlier lickety-cut, lickety-click, and simply licketie, 1817), from lick (n.1) in dialectal sense "very fast sprint in a race" (1809) on the notion of a "lick" as a fast thing (cf. blink).