trice

The phrase "in a trice" means almost at once or very quickly. It is a lively, old-fashioned way to say that something happened in no time. Think of the time it takes to blink or snap your fingers. You might say, "The rabbit disappeared in a trice," or "She had the bags packed in a trice." It helps add a bit of color when you want to stress how fast something happened. Just do not confuse it with "twice," which means two times.

"In a trice" is an idiom that means in an instant, very quickly, or without delay. Today, trice is almost always used in this fixed phrase rather than by itself. When someone says something happened "in a trice," they mean it was over almost as soon as it began. For example, "The thief snatched the purse and was gone in a trice" shows that the whole thing happened with startling speed.

The word has roots in older language about pulling or hauling quickly. In sailing, to "trice up" meant to hoist something with a quick pull. Over time, that sense of one quick movement helped give rise to the idea of something being done in a very short time. That is how "in a trice" came to mean something like "in one quick moment."

You'll often find "in a trice" in stories, descriptions, or playful speech where the writer wants to make quick action feel vivid. "He had the door unlocked in a trice and rushed inside." It works best for things that seem sudden or finish very fast, not for long, slow tasks. So if something happens in a trice, the idea is simple: it happened so fast that it felt like hardly any time passed at all.