At once

Learn the English expression, "At once"

"At once" is an English expression with two meanings.

First, it can mean to do something immediately, without any delay or waiting. If someone has a medical emergency, you might say, "Call a doctor at once!" That means, call a doctor right now, without waiting. When people use "at once" like this, there's always some urgency in their voices.

Here's the second meaning. "At once" can also mean to do two or more things at the same time. If you make a careless mistake at work, it might be because you were trying to do too many things at once (too many things at the same time).

So here are your two meanings. If something has to happen immediately, do it at once. And if you do two things at the same time, you do two things at once.

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Practice: Read the transcript of this episode, take a quiz, and practice using "At once": https://plainenglish.com/expressions/at-once

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