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once-over-lightly

[wuhns-oh-ver-lahyt-lee]
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noun Informal.
  1. a hasty or superficial treatment, look, examination, etc.; once-over: The maid gave the room the once-over-lightly.
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Origin of once-over-lightly

First recorded in 1940–45
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words

outwardly, scan, read, peruse, skim, feed, survey, graze, nibble, leaf, thumb, apparently, carelessly, casually, hastily, ostensibly, partially, externally, extraneously, frivolously

Idioms and Phrases with once over lightly

once over lightly

Cursorily, quickly, as in I did go over the program once over lightly, but perhaps I should read it more carefully. [Colloquial; mid-1900s]

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The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.