Word.ws English Dictionary

like one o'clock

like one o'clock prepositional phrase: very quickly or vigorously.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (UK, obsolete, slang, simile) Very quickly or vigorously.
    • Brought up as a gentleman, he was, if ever a man was. Ed’cated at no end of expense. Went into the Marshal’s house once to try a new piano for him. Played it, I understand, like one o’clock—beautiful! As to languages—speaks anything.1855 December – 1857 June, Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1857, →OCLC
    • I went over the fence like a shot, and ran like one o'clock for the trap, cussing and swearing as I went.1899, H. G. Wells, Mr. Brisher's Treasure

Questions about like one o'clock

What does like one o'clock mean?
Like one o'clock means very quickly or vigorously.
What part of speech is like one o'clock?
Like one o'clock is a prepositional phrase.

Words near like one o'clock in the dictionary

  1. like nobody's watching
  2. like of
  3. like old boots
  4. like one means it
  5. like one needs a hole in the head
  6. like one o'clock
  7. like one o'clock half struck
  8. like one owns the place
  9. like one's life depended on it
  10. like painting the Forth Bridge
  11. like peas and carrots

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like one o'clock (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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