thick and fast

English

Adverb

thick and fast (not comparable)

1. Occurring in large numbers and rapidly.
   • 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:

     He sobbed […] but he forgave them. Then the sobs came thick and fast.

   • 1905 January 12, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], The Scarlet Pimpernel, popular edition, London: Greening & Co., published 20 March 1912, →OCLC:

     […] in view of the many events which were crowding thick and fast in Paris just then […]

   • 1905 April–October, Upton Sinclair, chapter XIX, in The Jungle, New York, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1906 February 26, →OCLC:

     There were three or four inches of fresh snow on the ground, and the flakes were falling thick and fast.

   • 1941 February, O. S. Nock, “The Locomotives of Sir Nigel Gresley: Part 1—G.N.R. 1911-1914”, in Railway Magazine, page 77:

     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.

See also

• few and far between