thick and fast

adverb

Occurring in large numbers and rapidly.

“Near-synonyms: thick on the ground, common, widespread, abundant; ubiquitous”

Meanings

adverbthick and fast (not comparable)
  1. not comparableOccurring in large numbers and rapidly.

    Near-synonyms: thick on the ground, common, widespread, abundant; ubiquitous

    5 more examples

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

    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

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

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

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

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

    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.

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

    Bubbles are coming thick and fast these days. There is a boom in booms.

    2026 February 21, David Streitfeld, “People Loved the Dot-Com Boom. The A.I. Boom, Not So Much.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

    Synonyms: thick on the ground, common, widespread, abundant, ubiquitous · Antonyms: thin on the ground, few and far between, deficient, in short supply, wanting, lacking, uncommon, rare

Synonyms & antonyms

Cite this entry
APA

thick and fast. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/thick%20and%20fast

MLA

“thick and fast.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/thick%20and%20fast. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “thick and fast,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/thick%20and%20fast.

Source: thick and fast on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.