Lickety-split
adv
adv ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Adverb
- 1 Quickly; as fast as possible; in short order. not-comparable
"At the sound of the starting gun, they were off and running lickety-split."
Example
More examples"I put on my socks lickety-split."
Etymology
First attested during the 19th century, in the US, equivalent to lickedy + split, perhaps as a reference to the flick or darting of a snake's forked tongue. The forms lickety-cut and licketie are similarly attested; and forms with t are likely due to Scottish influence.
More for "lickety-split"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.