Immediately, at once. This cliché, which dates from the early nineteenth century, uses right as an intensifier, a usage dating from about 1200, and away in the sense of “at once,” a usage dating from the early 1600s. The term is an Americanism, the British equivalent being straightaway. William Safire points out that Dickens noticed it while visiting America in 1842, saying “I saw now that ‘Right away’ and ‘Directly’ were one and the same thing” (American Notes, Chapter II).