before you can say Jack Robinson en · X
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.
Meanings
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Very quickly; quicker than one expects.
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.
1819 March 27, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, page 3, column 2: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.’
1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:Father is seated inside the carriage before you can say Jack Robinson.
2002, Michel Faber, The Crimson Petal and the White, Canongate Books (2010), page 772:
Synonyms
quick as a flash · quick as a fox · in two shakes of a lamb's tail · before you can say Jack Robertson · in the twinkling of an eye · before you can say knife · quick as lightning
Translations (2)
fi ennen kuin ehdit kissaa sanoa (very quickly) · ca en un dir Jesús (very quickly)