like the wind

English edit

(simile) quickly, at a high speed.
- 1947 July and August, “Notes and News: Caledonian Reminiscences”, in Railway Magazine, page 256:
  At any rate, in my experience, they could run like the wind, but longer and heavier trains slowly but surely became too much for them.
- 1959 April, P. Ransome-Wallis, “The Southern in Trouble on the Kent Coast”, in Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 220:
  Although we took our eight bogies along to Whitstable at 60 m.p.h., and made a clean start from there, after Herne Bay the engine primed badly on Blacksole Bank and nearly stopped before we got over the top. Then we ran like the wind across the marshes with half-regulator, 30 per cent cut-off, and the engine blowing off.
- 2006, Bridgette Z. Savage, Fly Like the Wind, →ISBN:
  How she would fly like the wind, up that road in front of the house, and away.
- 2011, V.C. Andrews, Petals on the Wind, →ISBN:
  Even if I don't run like the wind I have my own bag of tricks.
(simile) changeably, freely and at liberty.
- 2011, David Roberts, Once They Moved Like the Wind: Cochise, Geronimo, →ISBN:
(simile) invisibly, mysteriously, unpredictably.
- 1889, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit‎^[1]:
  The Spirit Of God is like the wind. Note well that his operation is unexpected. The wind bloweth where it listeth, so that thou knowest not what wind to expect.