A very short time; an instant; a moment; – now used only in the phrase in a trice.
1623, William Shakespeare, King Lear, Crown Publishers, Inc. (1975), page 975,This is most strange, that she, who even but now was your best object...most best, most dearest, should in this trice of time commit a thing so monstrous, to dismantle so many folds of favor.
1907, Robert W. Service, Chapter , Till I came to the marge of Lake Lebarge, and a derelict there lay; It was jammed in the ice, but I saw in a trice it was called the "Alice May". And I looked at it, and I thought a bit, and I looked at my frozen chum; Then "Here", said I, with a sudden cry, "is my cre-ma-tor-eum."
2013, J. M. Coetzee, . Melbourne, Australia: The Text Publishing Company. chapter 22. p. 220.And in a trice he has clambered onto the kitchen dresser and is reaching for the top shelf.
