ONCE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Once

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/wəns/ Listen

adverb

Once adv.

1.

For one time; by limitation to the number one; not twice nor any number of times more than one. "Ye shall... go round about the city once." "Trees that bear mast are fruitful but once in two years."

2.

At some one period of time; used indefinitely. "My soul had once some foolish fondness for thee." "That court which we shall once govern."

3.

At any one time; often nearly equivalent to ever, if ever, or whenever; as, once kindled, it may not be quenched. "Wilt thou not be made clean? When shall it once be?" "To be once in doubt Is once to be resolved." Note: Once is used as a noun when preceded by this or that; as, this once, that once. It is also sometimes used elliptically, like an adjective, for once-existing. "The once province of Britain."

At once.

(a)

At the same point of time; immediately; without delay. "Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once." "I... withdrew at once and altogether."

(b)

At one and the same time; simultaneously; in one body; as, they all moved at once.

Once and again, once and once more; repeatedly. "A dove sent forth once and again, to spy."

noun

Once n. (Zool.) The ounce.

See images of 'Once'

Etymology of 'Once'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Once" Quotes from Famous Books

... at once to see Major Provost, the Commandant. He had already handed in his report at the citadel. It was probable that this was some new work for him. He had just settled his mind to the prospect of a rest, the first since that mad holiday, seven years before, when ...

— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin

... conspired actively for the overthrow of the Hojo. He took Prince Morinaga into his confidence, and, under the name Oto no Miya, made him lord-abbot of the great monastery of Hiei-zan, thus securing at once a large force of soldier cenobites. To the same end other religious establishments were successfully approached. During the space of five years this plot escaped Kamakura's attention. But, in 1331, the Bakufu, becoming suspicious, laid hands on several of the plotters and, subjecting ...

— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi

... of Coombe had, as he said, been born at once too early and too late to admit of any fixed establishment of tastes and ideals. His existence had been passed in the transition from one era to another—the Early Victorian, under whose disappearing influences he had spent his youth; the Late Victorian and Edwardian, in whose more rapidly ...

— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... compels.(3) I who have conversed viva voce et propria persona with those whose recollections could run back so far as the times previous to the confiscations which followed the Revolution of 1688—whose memory could repeople halls long roofless and desolate, and point out the places where greatness once had been, may feel all this more strongly, and with a more vivid interest, than can those whose sympathies are awakened by the feebler influence of what may be called the PICTURESQUE ...

— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... story was the means of according me a more heartfelt glow of satisfaction, a more gratifying sense of pride, than anything I ever have or ever shall write, and in this wise. My brother, at that time the rector of an Irish parish, once forwarded to me a letter from a lady unknown to him, but who had heard he was the brother of "Harry Lorrequer," and who addressed him not knowing where a letter might be directed to myself. The letter was the grateful expression of a mother, who said, "I am the widow of a field ...

— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

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