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Greased lightning

noun

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Something incredibly fast (now mainly used in comparison: like or faster than greased lightning). uncountable

    "We find there quite seriously the monstrous hyperboles of swallowing a camel, of having a wooden beam in the eye, of a camel's going through the eye of a needle, of heaping coals of fire on the head; all well enough as jokes, like the description of the Green Mountain road so steep that "greased lightning could not go down it without the breeching on"."

Etymology

Believed to come from the observation that greased machinery tends to run faster, and the notion that if a lightning strike (the fastest normally observed movement) could be greased, it might move even faster. Originally US usage, but soon well known in UK due to Thackeray's use in 1848 (see cite).

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