Citations:lickety

English citations of lickety, lickerty, licketty, lickity, lickoty, and licketie

1818 1843 1845 1852 1865 1877 1879 1883 1886 1893 1912 1935 1953 1980 2014
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  • 1818 July to December, “Mr. Hazlitt and his school”, in Analectic Magazine[1], volume XII, Philadelphia: Moses Thomas, →OCLC, page 205:
    We often observe, that a person, in the ardor of conversation, when at a loss for words, will contrive to keep up his discourse, by uttering a set of arbitrary syllables, and giving them signification and force by means of his countenance and gestures. Such are those clumsy expressions, ‘lickity-split,’ ‘stripety-strain,’ ‘nimminee-pimminee,’ ‘namby-pamby,’ and a hundred others, which we might adduce.
  • 1843, John S. Robb, Streaks of Squatter of Life, and Far-west Scenes[2], page 116:
    Away they started, “lickety-click,” and arrived at the winning-post within touching distance of each other.
  • 1845, William Scoresby, American Factories and their Female Operatives[3], page 41:
    Jimmy snatched it as soon as it was ready, and ran out “full tilt,” in knightly phrase, or as he afterwards said, “lickity split.”
  • 1852, Noggs, “Diary of a New England Physician”, in The Water-cure Journal[4], page 58:
    Oh how shall I describe the tumultuousness of my felicity when I actually found myself on the way — “lickety split” — for I went Gilpin-like, although the case had been of ten year’s standing — being anxious to show my zeal, and to show the villagers that I, Dr. Pillicoddy, was going to see a live patient!
  • 1865, Alfred Billings Street, Woods and Waters: Or Summer in the Saranacs[5], page 123:
    'Twas licketty whang which should beat, I or the water, but I pulled and I strained ! I tell ye didn't I work ! Well, I did some.
  • 1877, George Melville Baker, “Yankee dialect recitations”, in The Reading Club and Handy Speaker, page 151:
    I tried to catch on ; but he went off lickerty-switch, like a steam-engine, and I couldn't keep up.
  • 1879, The Atlantic Monthly, page 658:
    Vulgarisms, cant, and slang. ¶ Such are “let her rip,” “let her went,” “lickety split,” “lickety cut,” “liquor up,” “long sass,” “go it with a looseness,” “lie around loose,” “like Sam Hill,” and “loco-foeo.” But such trivial and meaningless and ephemeral phrases as these are might much better be omitted from a Dictionary of Americanisms.
  • 1883, Henry Martyn Kieffer, The Recollections of a Drummer-boy[6], page 193:
    Sure enough, there he did go, from tree-top to tree-top, "lickerty-skoot," as Andy afterward expressed it, and we after him, quite losing our heads, and shouting like Indians.
  • 1886, John Ross Robertson, Sketches in City Churches[7], page 97:
    There is no rollicking, licketty, namby-pamby waltzing up and down the scale, but a harmonious and truly musical progression with soul in it.
  • 1886, Bret Harte, “Chiquita”, in Abraham Firth, editor, Voices for the Speechless[8], page 95:
    Lickity, lickity, switch, we came to the ford, and Chiquita / Buckled right down to her work, and afore I could yell to her rider, / Took water jest at the ford
  • 1893, Mary Alicia Owen, Voodoo Tales: As Told Among the Negroes of the Southwest[9], page 234:
    Ef er ooman dat am got ter de age ter know betteh am gwine licketty-switch down de road ter sorrer, she gwine, dat all! But de time come! de time come, sartin shore [Granny grew quite oracular]
  • 1912, The Judge[10], volume 63:
    You know how it sounds in th' barn when a thrashin' machine's goin' licketty split?
  • 1935, Allen Walker Read, “Nantucketisms of 1848”, in American Speech, →DOI, page 40:
    The following list contains words and phrases that give Nantucket speech its distinctive character. [] LICKOTY LINER, LICKOTY SPLIT. Going very fast.
  • 1953, James Maurice Scott, Portrait of an Ice Cap: With Human Figures[11], page 26:
    The party left lickerty split about 4 p.m.
  • 1980, Sam McBratney, Lagan Valley Details[12], page 25:
    The master was coming. Ives watched it, fascinated. Lickity-slickity peck, it walked, proud and slow, lickity-slickity peck, lickity-slickity peck peck.
  • 2014 October 27, hess [username], “out of bed and riding on cockersfork”, in Jackson Forum[13], retrieved May 22, 2018:
    Didn't see aunt raggs car as we cam up boot hill, she must be a licketie splitting the roads'lol