Meaning of trice | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Now only in the phrase in a trice: a very short time; the blink of an eye, an instant, a moment.
2. A surname.
3. A pulley, a windlass (“form of winch for lifting heavy weights, comprising a cable or rope wound around a cylinder”).
   obsolete, rare

Equivalents

Examples

“Miſtruſtfully he truſteth, and he dreadingly did dare, / And fortie paſſions in a trice in him conſort and ſquare.”

“This is most ſtrange, that ſhe, who even but now / Was your beſt object, the argument of your praiſe, / Balme of your age, moſt beſt, moſt deereſt, / Should in this trice of time commit a thing / So monſtrous, to diſmantell ſo many foulds of fauour, […]”

“He saw a Turnkey in a trice / Unfetter a troublesome blade;”

“Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; / It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May." / And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; / Then "Here," said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."”

“And in a trice he has clambered onto the kitchen dresser and is reaching for the top shelf.”

“Perhaps images then, not words? Of terrified young people who in a trice went from dancing to frantic running in a futile attempt to escape the spray of bullets; […]”

CEFR level