| 词汇 | in two shakes of a lamb-s tail |
| 词源 | in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. A lamb can shake its tail twice quite rapidly, apparently more quickly than many animals can shake their tails once, which explains this Americanism, mean- ing “in hardly any time at all.” The expression dates back to the early 1800s and no one knows who coined it. Possibly it is a hu- morous extension of the older British phrase in two shakes, meaning the same, and probably alluding to the quick shaking of a dice box. |
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