Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adverb One time only.
- adverb At one time in the past; formerly.
- adverb At any time; ever.
- adverb By one degree of relationship.
- noun A single occurrence; one time.
- conjunction As soon as; if ever; when.
- adjective Having been formerly; former.
- idiom (at once) All at one time; simultaneously.
- idiom (at once) Immediately; instantly.
- idiom (once more/again) Another time; again.
- idiom (once more/again) As usual; in typical fashion.
from The Century Dictionary.
- One time.
- One and the same time: usually with at: as, they all cried out at once. See phrases below.
- At one time in the past; formerly.
- At some future time; some time or other.
- At any time; in any contingency; on any occasion; under any circumstances; ever.
- Without delay; immediately: often merely expletive: as, John, come here once.
- Once for all.
- Immediately; forthwith; without delay.
- When at any time; whenever; as soon as.
- noun An obsolete form of
ounce .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adverb For one time; by limitation to the number one; not twice nor any number of times more than one.
- adverb At some one period of time; -- used indefinitely.
- adverb At any one time; -- often nearly equivalent to ever, if ever, or whenever.
- adverb At one and the same time; simultaneously; in one body.
- adverb once and once more; repeatedly.
- noun (Zoöl.) The ounce.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adverb frequency
One and only onetime . - adverb temporal location
Formerly ; during someperiod in the past. - adverb mathematics multiplied by one: indicating that a number is multiplied by one
- conjunction As
soon as;when ;after .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adverb as soon as
- adverb at a previous time
- adverb on one occasion
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
-
You will get this, father, when perhaps it is too late; but if you have any pity, any love left for your boy, come to me once more -- _once more_, father!
The Boy Artist. A Tale for the Young F. M. S.
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_ _Yes, if it please you, once, and never but once_.
-
"The Dutch have tired me out; and I intended to fight with them once, _only once_, and to drive them over the Vaal."
With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back Edward P. Lowry
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Perhaps once, _once_, I might; but it is too late now.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 Various
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Not once -- not _once_, mind you -- had a single one of these great brains referred to the obvious.
Ten From Infinity Paul W. Fairman 1946
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Even now, once in a while, she -- but, thank heaven, not _once_ since meeting Lord Raygan; she was sure of that.
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I had already encountered some of these creatures, once during my moonlight flight from the Leopard-man, and once during my pursuit by Moreau on the previous day.
How the Beast Folk Taste Blood Herbert George 1896
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Mrs. Brown says it was all most awful an 'she knows from her son's face as he thinks it was all because she stopped stirrin' sometimes durin 'the two hours an' she declares with tears as she never stopped stirrin 'once -- not _once_.
Susan Clegg and a Man in the House Anne Warner 1891
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Oh, papa, dear papa, will you not let me -- will you not kiss me once, _just once_?
Holidays at Roselands Martha Finley 1868
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Never but once -- that uneffaceable _once_ -- had Agatha seen her husband look as he looked now.
Agatha's Husband A Novel Dinah Maria Mulock Craik 1856
sionnach commented on the word once
Spanish for 'eleven'; it is also an acronym for one of the lotteries popular in Spain, run by the national organization for the blind. See, e.g.,
http://gaelstat.blogspot.com/2007/09/wanna-bet.html
January 10, 2008