not long
adv1
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see not, long.
- "How long have you been in the service?" ―"Not long."
2
UK Fairly recently.
- "[…] You ought to try one of these biscuits. They're good." "I've not long had breakfast," Morgan told him.1976, L. P. Davies, Possession, The Crime Club, →ISBN, page 138:
- So I'd be going along to Elam Church sometimes and they had to go to a spring to get their water for the church; the spring was less'n a quarter of a mile from the church, good spring of water. And I'd be there, maybe not long got there, or I'd be there a pretty good while before I'd see her.2018 July 31, Theodore Rosengarten, All God's Dangers: The Life of Nate Shaw, Vintage, →ISBN, page 60:
- Related terms
- not long for