fasten

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English fastnen, also festnen,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English fæstnian (“to make fast, fix, secure; to ratify, betroth”),^[5][6][7] from Proto-West Germanic *fastinōjan,^[8][9] from Proto-Germanic *fastuz (“firm, solid”), the source of fast.^[9][8][10] Etymonline and Barnhart call the verb's ancestor Proto-Germanic.^[5][3] Its cognates include Old Frisian festnia (“to attach”), Old Saxon fastnōn (“to fasten, strengthen”), Old High German festinōn (“to affirm, join, strengthen”), Middle Dutch vestenen (“to affirm”), Middle Low German vestenen (“to attach, confirm”), German festnen, Old Norse fastna (“to pledge, betroth”), Swedish fastna (“to attach, get stuck”) and Danish fastne.^[11][5] In Old English the prefixed gefæstnian is much more frequent than the plain verb, and some prefixed past participles may belong to it.^[11] Further back, the American Heritage Dictionary gives Proto-Indo-European *past-,^[7] and Kroonen, comparing an Armenian word, reconstructs a root *pHst-.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To confirm or validate an agreement or pledge: early Old English, in the Will of Abba.^[11] Barnhart dates the Old English verb to before 900, with the sense to make fast or firm.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Ayto holds that the verb at first meant only to settle or establish, in a metaphorical way, and that the concrete "attach" appears in the 12th century;^[9] Barnhart similarly dates festnen, to attach or tie, to about 1125.^[3] The OED, revised in 2021, already finds the sense of fixing something securely in position in Old English,^[11] and Old English verse has it for fastening someone's hands.^[6] The older senses of strengthening faded: ratifying an agreement is last recorded in 1553,^[11] and hardening or making firm in 1776.^[11] Ayto dates its use for locking or bolting a door only to the mid-18th century.^[9] A dyer's sense, to fix a colour, appears in 1659,^[11][12] and in North America the verb meant to freeze a body of water from 1777 to 1929.^[11] Johnson (1755) listed it as to make fast, to hold together and to affix.^[13] English dialects kept "to seize with a grip" (Yorkshire, Shropshire), "to nonplus" (Lancashire, Nottinghamshire) and "to clinch a bargain with earnest money" (West Yorkshire, Cheshire), whence the Lakeland fassen-penny or fastening-penny.^[14] The sense of getting someone stuck survives in Jamaican use.^[11]

Timeline

• Old English – to confirm an agreement; to fortify a place; to restrain a person; to fix something securely.^[11]
• c. 1125 – festnen, to attach or tie to.^[3]
• before 1398 – to strengthen; to make hard or firm (obsolete by 1776).^[11]
• before 1460 – intransitive, to get stuck.^[11]
• 1590 – intransitive, to settle somewhere (obsolete by 1742).^[11]
• 1659 – to fix a dye.^[11]
• mid-18th century – to lock or bolt a door.^[9]
• 1777 – in North America, to freeze a body of water (obsolete by 1929).^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To attach or join one thing to another, as by pinning, tying or nailing: She fastened the note to the door with a tack.^[12][15][16]
2. To make secure or fix firmly in position: Fasten your coat before you go out.^[15][12][16]
3. To close something firmly with a bolt, latch or lock, or to become closed in this way.^[15][12]
4. To shut in or confine, usually with in or up.^[15][12]
5. To direct the gaze or attention keenly, usually with on or upon.^[15][12][16]
6. To attach or impute blame or a nickname to someone, usually with on.^[15][16]
7. To take firm hold of something, usually with on.^[15][14]
8. To make a dye fast.^[11][12]
9. (obsolete, Old English–1553) To ratify or confirm an agreement.^[11][12][16]
10. (obsolete, before 1398–1776) To strengthen; to make hard or firm.^[11][16][12]

Word family

• fastener
• refasten
• fastening
• unfasten

Related words

• fast

Usage notes

An obsolete noun fasten, fasting or a fast day, has a separate source: fæsten, from the base of fast, to abstain from food; the OED's last record of it as a general word is from 1425.^[11][16][12]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d e Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
10. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
15. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
16. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press