Word.ws English Dictionary

before you can say Jack Robinson

before you can say Jack Robinson phrase: very quickly; quicker than one expects.

Phrase

before you can say Jack Robinson

  1. Very quickly; quicker than one expects.
    • You have to be careful in that area. They'll have your wallet before you can say Jack Robinson.
    • To men so generally enlightened as our colonial masters are, we should rather feel ourselves indebted for a rebuke than presume to offer one; and yet a vessel vanishes; she's out of sight before you can say Jack Robinson; and the master prefers travelling with such of his crew as have abstained...1819 March 27, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, page 3, column 2

Examples of before you can say Jack Robinson in a sentence

  • I shall be on the lookout, and I’ll be with you before you can say Jack Robinson.’1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:
  • Father is seated inside the carriage before you can say Jack Robinson.2002, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, Canongate Books (2010), page 772:

Synonyms of before you can say Jack Robinson

Origin of before you can say Jack Robinson

Uncertain. There is some speculation that this is a reference to Sir John Robinson, the Lieutenant of the Tower of London from 1660 to 1680 and Lord Mayor of London in 1662, but there is nothing known about him that is associated with speed (Samuel Pepys called him as “a talking bragging bufflehead.”), and the phrase does not appear in print until 1778.

Questions about before you can say Jack Robinson

What does before you can say Jack Robinson mean?
Before you can say Jack Robinson means very quickly; quicker than one expects.
How do you use before you can say Jack Robinson in a sentence?
I shall be on the lookout, and I’ll be with you before you can say Jack Robinson.’
What part of speech is before you can say Jack Robinson?
Before you can say Jack Robinson is a phrase.

Words near before you can say Jack Robinson in the dictionary

  1. before the ink had time to dry
  2. before the ink was dry
  3. before the mast
  4. before times
  5. before you can say Jack Robertson
  6. before you can say Jack Robinson
  7. before you can say knife
  8. before't
  9. before-and-after
  10. before-and-afters
  11. before-hand

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: before you can say Jack Robinson (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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