Word.ws English Dictionary

quick as thought

quick as thought adjective: very quick.

Adjective

quick as thought (not comparable)

  1. (simile) Very quick.

Adverb

quick as thought (not comparable)

  1. (simile) Very quickly.
    • Quick as thought, I sprang into the mizzen shrouds, rattled up hand over hand, and did not draw a breath till I was seated on the cross-trees.1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
    • “But it is too late! Already footsteps are echoing along the gallery which connects the two wings. What can she do? Quick as thought, she hurries back to the young girl’s room, and starts shaking her awake.”1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 169

Questions about quick as thought

What does quick as thought mean?
Quick as thought means very quick.
What part of speech is quick as thought?
Quick as thought can be an adjective or an adverb.

Words near quick as thought in the dictionary

  1. quick and dirty
  2. quick as a flash
  3. quick as a fox
  4. quick as a wink
  5. quick as lightning
  6. quick as thought
  7. quick as winking
  8. quick bankruptcies
  9. quick bankruptcy
  10. quick bread
  11. quick breads

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: quick as thought (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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