Advertisement - Continue reading below

Definition of "trice" [trice]

  • A very short period of time; an instant: came back in a trice. (noun)
  • Nautical To hoist and secure with a rope: trice a sail. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "trice" in a sentence
  • "This would bear more scrutiny had France not deployed plenty of clichés already; yet her characters keep songs in their hearts, or sob with all of them, while the use of "in a trice" is an incentive to close the book faster than whatever measure of time a trice signifies."
  • "Vanishing, with a quick flirt of gingham apron-strings, she reappeared in considerably less than a "trice" as a fluffy"
  • "The bathtubs, it was true, could now be "filled in a trice because of torrents delivered through a heroic spout," in contrast to the painfully slow faucets of early liners."