from one day to the next

from one day to the next

1. From day to day, every day.

   He drives a different car from one day to the next.

2. In the span of a day.

   Synonym: overnight

   They became homeless from one day to the next.

   • 1865, Agénor de Gasparin, translated by Mary Louise Booth, Reconstruction! A Letter to President Johnson, page 35:

     What I have just said, Mr. President, should serve as a sufficient answer to those who say in an ironical tone that the right of suffrage has no magic virtue in itself, and that it cannot from one day to the next transform the slave into the complete citizen, and render him capable of governing the country.

   • 1996, Fred Block, “A Second Paradox of Thrift: Investment Strategies and the Future”, in Neva R. Goodwin, editor, As if the Future Mattered: Translating Social and Economic Theory into Human Behavior, →ISBN, page 94:

     Let us imagine the difference between this software firm and a firm producing consumer appliances in the 1950s if from one day to the next all their employees—below the highest management levels—simply walked away to take employment elsewhere.

   • 1998, Peter Peeters, The Four Phases of Society: Where Are We Going in the 21st Century?, →ISBN, page 124:

     The real reason is that retirement is a traumatic experience for most people. From one day to the next they turn from fully occupied persons with responsibilities and in many cases with the powers of decision, into beings with endless hours on their hands and nothing to do.

• “from one day to the next”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “from one day to the next”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.