Anon,

immediately, at once. The Old English an-on or an-ane = at once. Variants, on one, anone.

“They knewye hym in brekyng of brede, and onone he vanyste awaye fro hem.”—MS. Lincoln,, A 1, 17.

“Spek the lion . .

To the fox anone his wille.”

Wright’s Political Songs.

⁂ “For the nonce” is a corrupt form of “For the-n once,” where the-n is the accusative case, meaning “For the once” or “For this once.”

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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