all of a heap

English

Adverb

all of a heap (not comparable)

1. (colloquial, idiomatic) Into a sudden state of collapse or astonishment.
   • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:

     I walked straight in expecting to find her waiting for me in the front room, — I was struck all of a heap when I found she wasn’t there.

   • 1916, Algernon Blackwood, The Dance of Death, first published in The Quest: A Quarterly Review

     What caught me all of a heap was that million-dollar sense of beauty, youth, and happiness.

   • 2012, Joseph Lewis French, Masterpieces of Mystery, page 218:

     All of a sudden he remembered the spooks, and it knocked him all of a heap.

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary