on the double

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Idioms and Phrases

Very quickly, as in You'd better get here on the double . This expression, also put as at the double , came from the military, where it means “double time”—that is, marching twice as fast as normally. [Early 1800s]

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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