trice

IPA: trˈaɪs

Now only in the phrase in a trice: a very short time; the blink of an eye, an instant, a moment.
(obsolete, rare) A pulley, a windlass (“form of winch for lifting heavy weights, comprising a cable or rope wound around a cylinder”).
A surname.

(transitive, obsolete) To pull, to pull out or away, to pull sharply.
(transitive) To drag or haul, especially with a rope; specifically (nautical) to haul or hoist and tie up by means of a rope.

Examples of "trice" in Sentences

And with that she was away and below and back in a trice, in her hand
In a trice every window was vomiting forth the débris that clogged the interior.
In a trice, scores of moccasins were widening the space of beaten snow by the fire.
Of course, the greatest problem in a democracy is that half the voters have a below average IQ. trice
Jean de Joinville bore Philippa away in the press, and Fortini and I settled our arrangements in a trice.
In a trice the frost was started and the thawed streamlets dancing madly on the white-hot surface beneath.
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.
Of course, I could have struggled away from him and freed my hand or gotten my mouth clear so that I might cry an alarm, but in a trice Yellow Handkerchief was on top of me.
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.