Jump to:

• once-over-lightly
  once-over-lightly

  noun

  a hasty or superficial treatment, look, examination, etc.; once-over.
• 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]

once-over-lightly

American  

[wuhns-oh-ver-lahyt-lee] / ˈwʌnsˌoʊ vərˈlaɪt li /

noun

Informal.

1. a hasty or superficial treatment, look, examination, etc.; once-over.

   The maid gave the room the once-over-lightly.

---

once over lightly Idioms  

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

---

Etymology

Origin of once-over-lightly

First recorded in 1940–45

Example Sentences

This once-over-lightly approach is perhaps appropriate, given that Stritch was not inclined to introspection.

From Washington Post • Oct. 24, 2019

It’s more a once-over-lightly juxtaposition of soil types and wine characteristics, along with a look at the grapes that thrive in each type of soil and suggestions of wine producers to seek out.

From New York Times • Nov. 30, 2017

She was not one for a once-over-lightly look at what the policy team was advocating.

From Washington Post • Oct. 15, 2016

It’s a deliberately once-over-lightly way of proceeding, and professional philosophers and self-styled sophisticates will bail out before the second chapter.

From New York Times • Apr. 20, 2015

Under this once-over-lightly procedure, familiar to Cagney fans, Miss Davis comes as leapingly alive as if she had been stuck with a pin.

From Time Magazine Archive

Related Words

• flip through
• leaf through
• peruse
• read
• scan
• skim