haste
/heɪst/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms hastes hasting hasted
- noun Speed; swiftness; dispatch. “We were running late so we finished our meal in haste.”
- noun (obsolete) Urgency; sudden excitement of feeling or passion; precipitance; vehemence.
- verb (transitive, archaic) To urge onward; to hasten.
- verb (intransitive, archaic) To move with haste.
- proper noun A surname from Old French.
Synonyms
hurry rush scamper scramble scurry hastiness hurriedness precipitation rushing
Etymology
Blend of Middle English hasten (verb), (compare Dutch haasten, German hasten, Danish haste, Swedish hasta (“to hasten, rush”)) and Middle English hast (“haste”, noun), from Old French haste (whence French hâte), from Old Frankish *hai(f)st (“violence”), from Proto-Germanic *haifstiz (“struggle, conflict”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱeyp- (“to ridicule, mock, anger”). Akin to Old Frisian hāst, hāste (“haste”), Old English hǣst (“violence”), Old English hǣste (“violent, impetuous, vehement”, adjective), Old Norse heift /heipt (“feud”), Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐍆𐍃𐍄𐍃 (haifsts, “rivalry”). Cognate with German heftig (“vehement”) and Danish heftig (“vehement”).
Metonymic occupation surname for someone who turned the spit for roasting meat, from Old French haste (“spit”).
Webster’s 1913
- noun Celerity of motion; speed; swiftness; dispatch; expedition; --applied only to voluntary beings, as men and other animals.
- noun The state of being urged or pressed by business; hurry; urgency; sudden excitement of feeling or passion; precipitance; vehemence.
- verb To hasten; to hurry. [Archaic]
Etymology [OE. hast; akin to D. haast, G., Dan., Sw., & OFries. hast, cf. OF. haste, F. hâte (of German origin); all perh. fr. the root of E. hate in a earlier sense of, to pursue. See Hate.]
Etymology [OE. hasten; akin to G. hasten, D. haasten, Dan. haste, Sw. hasta, OF. haster, F. hâter. See Haste, n.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “haste”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details