before you can say jack robinson
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.10 in modern English
55
Scrabble Score
27
Letters
7
Syllables
14
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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 from joining the marauders, three or four hundred miles a foot, because he has no other mode of travelling, with the express design of telling his employer that he is completely ruined."
- "And if you see a sign of anyone being about the place, — living, or dead, or anyhow — you give me a yell. I shall be on the lookout, and I’ll be with you before you can say Jack Robinson.’"
- "Father is seated inside the carriage before you can say Jack Robinson."
Etymology
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.