ALL AT ONCE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does all at once mean? 

• ALL AT ONCE (adverb)
  The adverb ALL AT ONCE has 2 senses:

1. all at the same time

2. without warning

  Familiarity information: ALL AT ONCE used as an adverb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ALL AT ONCE (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

All at the same time

Synonyms:

all at once; all together

Context example:

Let's say 'Yes!' all at once

Sense 2

Meaning:

Without warning

Synonyms:

all at once; all of a sudden

Context example:

all at once, he started shouting

 Context examples 

The whole of life seems gone from me all at once, and there is nothing in the wide world for me to live for.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

You were hot and cold, and red and white, all at once when I spoke to you of her.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Taking too much all at once can overload your stomach and make you throw up.

(Dehydration, NIH)

Administration within or into a vein or veins all at once.

(Intravenous Bolus, Food and Drug Administration/CDISC)

It does not have to happen all at once.

(Obesity in Children, NIH: National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases)

I couldn’t convince her all at once, an’ so I brought her with me, and we argued it out on the way.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

With the earliest dawn the giants went into the forest, and had quite forgotten the little tailor, when all at once he walked up to them quite merrily and boldly.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

All at once I heard a clear voice call, "Miss Jane! where are you? Come to lunch!"

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Writing, thinking, and directing all at once might well bewilder the poor lady, and Meg begged her to sit quietly in her room for a little while, and let them work.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

But neither geography nor tranquillity could come all at once, and Emma was now in a humour to resolve that they should both come in time.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)