Fast

How to spell fast

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fast

What does fast mean?

1. adjectiveMoving or able to move at high speed; quick.
2. adverbFirmly fixed in place or tightly secured.
3. verbTo abstain from all or some food, often for religious or medical reasons.
4. nounA period during which one abstains from food.

Fast in a sentence

• adjective

  The express service is surprisingly fast on that stretch of track.

• adverb

  The boat was stuck fast on the sandbank until the tide rose.

• verb

  Patients must fast for twelve hours before the blood test.

• noun

  The doctor recommended a short overnight fast before the procedure.

• adjective

  She is a fast reader and finishes a novel in a day.

• adverb

  The dye is colour fast and will not run in the wash.

Where does fast come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes from Old English fæst, meaning 'firm', 'fixed', or 'secure', and it traces back to a common Germanic ancestor that also gave German 'fest' (firm) and the verb 'fasten'. Its oldest English meaning had nothing to do with speed: to hold fast was to hold firmly, and a fast colour is still one that will not run or fade. The sense of 'quick' developed in a roundabout way: an adverb fæste once meant 'firmly' and then 'vigorously', and running vigorously came to mean running rapidly, so by the Middle Ages 'fast' had acquired its modern speed meaning. The religious verb 'to fast', meaning to abstain from food, comes from the same firm root through Old English fæstan, the idea being to hold firmly to a rule of self denial. Because all these meanings descend from one short, native word, the spelling is mercifully simple and has stayed almost unchanged for over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• fast (single Germanic root meaning firm, fixed); the speed sense grew from the idea of moving firmly/vigorously