lickety
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Fanciful variant of lick, a noun used regionally or informally as a synonym of sprint,[1] perhaps with -ety, a suffix used to extend monosyllabic words.[2]
Pronunciation
[edit]Adverb
[edit]lickety
- (US, informal, usually compounded with a noun) At full speed, fast.
- lickety-cut
- lickety-split
- 1843, John S. Robb, Streaks of Squatter of Life, and Far-west Scenes[1], page 116:
- Away they started, “lickety-click,” and arrived at the winning-post within touching distance of each other.
- 1886, Bret Harte, “Chiquita”, in Abraham Firth, editor, Voices for the Speechless, page 95:
- Lickity, lickity, switch, we came to the ford, and Chiquita / Buckled right down to her work
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:lickety.
References
[edit]- ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “lickety-split”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
- ^ “-ety, suffix”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, November 2010.
