Englishon the spur of the moment
Meaning: Suddenly or spontaneously; without advance planning.
Example: “On the spur of the moment, we drove to the coast for the sunrise.”
Origin: "Spur," from Old English spura, names the small spiked device worn on a rider's boot heel and pressed into a horse's flank to urge it forward instantly, with no hesitation or advance warning to the animal. An older, now largely obsolete phrase, simply "on the spur," meaning in great haste, is documented from the 1500s, describing a rider pushing a horse to its fastest possible pace. "On the spur of the moment" itself emerged by the late 1700s, with an early recorded use in Jackson's Oxford Journal in July 1784, transferring the horse's sudden, unhesitating response to a spur's prick onto a person's own sudden, unplanned decision — an action provoked instantly by the moment itself, with no more advance deliberation than a spurred horse gets before it bolts forward.
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