at one stroke
prep_phrase1
With a single blow, effort, or act.
- I made up my mind that a man confined to his room by inflammation of the lungs, a fellow who had only two wishes left in the world, to see a particular woman, and then to die, could neatly accomplish those two wishes at one stroke by taking this journey in the rain.1895, Thomas Hardy, chapter 9, in Jude the Obscure:
- I should be ready to do the job without being paid for it, though I don't say it is not sweeter to get both gold and revenge at one stroke.1898, G. A. Henty, “On A Mexican Ranche”, in Yule Logs: Longmans' Christmas Annual:
2
Broadly, Figuratively At once, immediately; in an instant.
- [T]he whole object of the poem is to show what infinities of spiritual good and evil a current and sordid story may contain. When once this is realised, it explains at one stroke the innumerable facts about the work.1903, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, chapter 7, in Robert Browning:
- . . . with the wind of ruin in his hair, Soul sprang full-statured from the broken flesh, And at one stroke he lived the whole of life.1909, Edith Wharton, “A Torchbearer”, in Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verses:
2 more examples
- At one stroke his dashing raiment gave him high superiority over Johnnie Watson and other rivals who might loom.1916, Booth Tarkington, chapter 7, in Seventeen:
- In a blaze of creativity during 10 days in 1950 photographing the Paris collections, he became at one stroke one of the major fashion photographers of the century.1997 December 14, Vicki Goldberg, “Photography View: One Eye on Art, the Other on Commerce”, in New York Times, retrieved 01 Jan 2014:
- Synonyms
- in one fell swoop, all of a sudden, suddenly
- Related terms
- at one blast, at one blow