A once-over is a quick glance to check something. Not an inspection — a look that takes a few seconds and decides.
You give something the once-over, and the article the is almost always there. The phrase covers a mechanic glancing under a bonnet, a teacher scanning a page, or somebody sizing up a stranger who has just walked in, which is the slightly rude use. There is a second sense in cleaning: giving the kitchen a quick once-over means a fast tidy rather than a proper job. Both senses share the same admission — this was not thorough and nobody is pretending it was.
From the idea of going over something once.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.
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