hastily

[heyst-l-ee]

adverb

1. with haste; rapidly; speedily.

   Late one snowy night in Maryland, moving crews hastily loaded a line of vans and, under cover of darkness, departed the city.

2. without sufficient care or attention.

   This book feels far less potent, and far more hastily written, than the earlier work.

3. unnecessarily quickly or rashly; impetuously.

   Six months earlier, she had hastily married a former high school classmate.

Other Word Forms

• unhastily adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of hastily¹

First recorded in 1275–1325; hasty ( def. ) + -ly

Example Sentences

Greg Lippmann wrote back hastily and ungrammatically, “Would you like to give us some other bonds that we can tell you what we will pay you.”

Read more on Literature

If you didn’t spend your formative years reading hastily penned blogs that ended with .mp3 embeds of dubious legality, it’s possible you don’t know who Grimes is.

Read more on Salon

"Perhaps I acted a little hastily", he said, adding that he had "other concerns" at that time, which was marked by several militant attacks in Europe, and particularly in France.

Read more on Barron's

Officials hastily executed a confusing U-turn, pumping cash back into the system.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Newsom’s addendums provide a glimpse into the sometimes flawed or incomplete process of crafting new laws, at times hastily at the end of legislative session, requiring flaws or unresolved conflicts to be remedied later.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• carelessly www.thesaurus.com
• hurriedly www.thesaurus.com
• nimbly 
• prematurely www.thesaurus.com
• promptly 
• quickly 
• speedily www.thesaurus.com
• suddenly 
• swiftly 

When To Use

What does hastily mean?

Hastily means rashly or too quickly and often carelessly.The related adjective hasty most commonly means too fast and often careless.The noun haste most commonly refers to urgency, such as in completing a task. Haste can also be used as another word for speed or swiftness. But haste also commonly means urgency or speed that is careless or reckless. This is how the word is used in the expression haste makes waste, which means that rushing things leads to mistakes. This is how hasty and hastily are most commonly used.Doing things hastily is thought to lead to mistakes. Making a decision hastily is making it too quickly, often leading to negative consequences.Hastily can also mean speedily, as in We packed up hastily and left as quickly as we could. Example: Don’t make big decisions hastily—you should always take some time to think about them.