no sooner than
English
[edit]Preposition
[edit]- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see no, sooner, than.
- Antonyms: no later than, before
- Coordinate terms: as soon as, at, around
- Near-synonym: after
- He will arrive no sooner than ten o'clock.
Conjunction
[edit]- Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see no, sooner, than.
- Antonym: no later than
- Coordinate terms: as soon as, before, after
- He will arrive no sooner than I will.
- At the moment when; instantaneously after; immediately after.
- Synonyms: as soon as, once
- Near-synonyms: immediately, instantly, hardly
- No sooner had he arrived than the others grew talkative.
- She'd no sooner passed her driving test than/when her family started asking for lifts.
- 1892 June, Appleton Morgan, “Wanted: A Railway Court of Last Resort”, in Popular Science Monthly:
- No sooner did the act become law than it operated to relieve the railways from competition
- [1921?], John Cournos, “Circe”, in The Wall, London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.; New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC, chapter VIII, section I, page 207:
- He had prepared such a fine pedestal for her, draped her in so many beautiful illusions. But if she was an elf, there was no keeping an elf on a pedestal. No sooner had he arranged her there nicely, than off she flopped in her elfish way, scattering the illusions he had attached to her, as it were, a Salome shedding her seven veils. So he fluttered between his beliefs and doubtings.
- (idiomatic) Used to indicate that the second action mentioned is as likely as, or is preferred to, the first action mentioned.
- Coordinate terms: as soon as, before
- I'd no sooner shop at their store than jump in a lake.
Translations
[edit]immediately after — see as soon as