Word.ws English Dictionary

once-over

once-over noun: a quick clean or polish.

Noun

once-over (plural once-overs)

  1. A quick clean or polish.
    • I gave the room a once-over with the mop.
  2. A cursory inspection or survey.
    • My GP gave me the once-over and said it was merely a cold.
    • I'll give it a once-over for free, but a proper look will cost you.

Examples of once-over in a sentence

  • The girls sat there while the johns (customers) moped around giving them the once-over.1946, Milton “Mezz” Mezzrow, Bernard Wolfe, “Not too Far Tangent”, in Really the Blues, New York, N.Y.: Random House, book 1 (1899–1923: A...
  • The dear old room was just as I'd left it, nothing changed, and my first move, of course, was to procure another chair and give the top of the armoire the once-over.1960, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter VIII, in Jeeves in the Offing:
  • Giving the wench the once-over as she entered, I found myself well able to understand why Bobbie on observing her entangled with [her fiancé] had exploded with so loud a report.1960, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter XIII, in Jeeves in the Offing:
  • He gave her the once-over, hooked with his foot a swivel chair from the next desk and rolled it over for her.1966 March, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 4, in The Crying of Lot 49, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, published November 1976, →ISBN, page 61:

Forms of once-over

pluralonce-overs
alternative formonce over

Origin of once-over

From the idea of going over something once.

Questions about once-over

What does once-over mean?
Once-over means a quick clean or polish.
How do you use once-over in a sentence?
The girls sat there while the johns (customers) moped around giving them the once-over.
What part of speech is once-over?
Once-over is a noun.
What is the plural of once-over?
The plural of once-over is once-overs.

Words near once-over in the dictionary

  1. once you go Persian, there's no other version
  2. once-in-a-generation
  3. once-in-a-lifetime
  4. once-off
  5. once-offs
  6. once-over
  7. once-over-lightlies
  8. once-over-lightly
  9. once-overs
  10. once-removed
  11. onced

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: once-over (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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Cite this entry: “once-over.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/once-over. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.