lickety
English
Alternative forms
- licketie
- lickerty, licketty
- lickity
- lickoty
Etymology
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]
Adverb
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, 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 examples of usage of this term, see Citations:lickety.
References
- “lickety-split” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
- “-ety, suffix.”, in OED Online
