hasten

Etymology

It is formed from English haste + -en.^[2][3][4][5] The OED takes the base as the noun;^[2] the Shorter Oxford and Klein take it as the verb.^[3][4] Etymonline and the Oxford Dictionary of English call the word an extended form, the latter on the pattern of other verbs in -en,^[6][7] and Merriam-Webster calls it an alteration.^[8][9] The noun is from Old French haste (“haste, speed”),^[2][6][10] modern hâte,^[2][6] and the older verb, recorded from the late 13th century, is from Old French haster (“to hurry; to urge”).^[6][10] The French noun probably comes from the Germanic base of Old English hǣst (“violence, fierceness”) and Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐍆𐍃𐍄𐍃 (haifsts, “strife, contest”).^[2] Etymonline names Frankish *haifst (“violence”) or another Germanic source, from Proto-Germanic *haifstiz,^[6] and Hoad and Ayto reconstruct a West Germanic form instead.^[10][11] The further origin is unknown.^[2][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make haste, to act or to go quickly: 1534, in Elyot's translation of Saint Cyprian, in the OED's revised entry.^[2] Other dictionaries date the verb later: to the 1560s,^[6] to 1565–73,^[5] to 1565–75^[12] and, for the transitive sense, to 1568.^[8] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English say the mid 16th century.^[3][7]

Semantic evolution

The new form took over the work of the older verb haste, which Hoad says it superseded in the 16th century.^[10][6] Both uses, "go quickly" and "make something go quickly", were there almost from the start, the second recorded about 1537 in Elyot's Castell of Helthe.^[2] From 1592 it could also mean to send a letter or troops off quickly, a use Merriam-Webster marks as obsolete and the Shorter Oxford limits to the early 17th to the mid 18th century.^[2][8][3] Johnson (1755) treated haste and hasten together, defining the transitive verb as to push forward, urge on, drive to a swifter pace, and the intransitive as to make haste, be in a hurry, move with swiftness.^[13] The saying to hasten slowly, recorded from 1623, follows Medieval Latin festina lente (“make haste slowly”).^[2]

Timeline

• 1534 – intransitive, to make haste, to come or go quickly.^[2]
• c. 1537 – transitive, to quicken, urge on, accelerate.^[2]
• 1592 – to dispatch a letter or troops speedily.^[2]
• 1623 – to hasten slowly, to progress steadily without rushing.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To move or act quickly; to hurry: We hastened back to the station.^[14][8][2]
2. To do something promptly, especially to say it at once: She hastened to explain that the money was safe.^[14][8][3]
3. To make something happen sooner or go faster; to accelerate: The cold snap hastened the end of the harvest.^[14][8][2]
4. To urge or drive a person on.^[8][2][3]
5. (obsolete) To send or bring quickly.^[8][3]

Word family

• hastener
• outhasten
• overhasten
• unhastened

Related words

• haste
• hasty

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ 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
4. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
10. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
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 c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins