in a flash

Idioms and Phrases

Also, in a jiffy or second or trice . Quickly, immediately. For example, I'll be with you in a flash , or He said he'd be done in a jiffy , or I'll be off the phone in a second , or I felt a drop or two, and in a trice there was a downpour . The first idiom alludes to a flash of lightning and dates from about 1800. The word jiffy , meaning “a short time,” is of uncertain origin and dates from the late 1700s (as does the idiom using it); a second , literally one-sixtieth of a minute, has been used vaguely to mean “a very short time” since the early 1800s; and trice originally meant “a single pull at something” and has been used figuratively since the 1500s.