thick and fast en · ADV
Meanings
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(not-comparable) Occurring in large numbers and rapidly.
It links the time when single-wheelers were still being used on crack expresses to our modern streamline age, when up to the outbreak of war developments both at home and overseas were following thick and fast upon each other.
1941 February, O. S. Nock, “The Locomotives of Sir Nigel Gresley: Part 1—G.N.R. 1911-1914”, in Railway Magazine, page 77:[…] in view of the many events which were crowding thick and fast in Paris just then[…]
1905 January 12, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], The Scarlet Pimpernel, popular edition, London: Greening & Co., published 20 March 1912, →OCLC:Near-synonyms: thick on the ground, common, widespread, abundant; ubiquitous
There were three or four inches of fresh snow on the ground, and the flakes were falling thick and fast.
1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, chapter XIX, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 26 February 1906, →OCLC:He sobbed[…]but he forgave them. Then the sobs came thick and fast.
1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter 13, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, pages 113–114:Bubbles are coming thick and fast these days. There is a boom in booms.
2026 February 21, David Streitfeld, “People Loved the Dot-Com Boom. The A.I. Boom, Not So Much.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
Antonyms
deficient · thin on the ground · wanting · few and far between · rare · lacking · uncommon · in short supply
Relateds
Synonyms
widespread · abundant · common · ubiquitous · thick on the ground