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vast

Etymology and origin of the English word vast

History Permalink
Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1575–85
Borrowed from
Middle French vaste
Ultimate origin
Latin (vastus)

Pronunciation

  • IPA: UK /vɑːst/, US /væst/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Middle French vaste and directly from Latin vastus (“immense, huge; desolate, empty”).[2][3] The two meanings probably belonged to separate words, with a long and a short a, that merged in early Latin,[2][3] so that vast is related to waste and vain.[3][4][5] Barnhart and MWU compare Old Irish fot “length”.[3][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of very great size: 1575–85 in the OED and Barnhart, the 1570s in Etymonline.[7][3][2]

Semantic evolution

Of great extent or area is from 1590,[7] very great in quantity or number from the 1630s,[2][7] and very great in degree from the 1670s.[2] It was very popular as a mere intensifier in the fashionable speech of the early 18th century, as in vast many (1695).[2][7] The noun, an immense space, is from 1604, chiefly poetic.[7][6] A verb vast, to lay waste, is recorded once in 1434.[7]

Timeline

  • 1575–85 – very large.[7]
  • 1590 – of great extent.[7]
  • 1604 – noun, an immense space.[7]
  • 1637 – very great in quantity.[7]
  • 1696 – a mere intensive.[7]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Extremely large in size, area or amount; immense.
  2. Very great in degree: a vast improvement.

Word family

  • vastly
  • vastness
  • supervast
  • vastitude
  • vastity

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Vast.” Etymologically, 16 Oct. 2026, etymologically.com/en/vast. Accessed 16 Oct. 2026.

Last edited on . ·