hasty
Americanadjective
-
hastier,
comparative
-
hastiest
superlative
-
moving or acting with haste; speedy; quick; hurried.
- Antonyms:
- slow
-
made or done with haste or speed.
a hasty visit.
-
unduly quick; precipitate; rash.
a hasty decision.
- Antonyms:
- deliberate
-
brief; fleeting; passing; slight.
a hasty glance.
-
impatient; impetuous; thoughtless; injudicious.
hasty words.
-
easily irritated or angered; irascible.
a hasty temper.
adjective
-
rapid; swift; quick
-
excessively or rashly quick
-
short-tempered
-
showing irritation or anger
hasty words
Usage
What does hasty mean? Hasty most commonly means too fast and often careless. Synonyms include rash, rushed, or hurried. 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 usually how hasty is used. Being too hasty when doing something is thought to lead to mistakes. A hasty decision is one that is thought to have been made too quickly, often leading to negative consequences. A hasty generalization involves jumping to broad conclusions by judging something too quickly. Hasty can also mean brief or moving with or done with speed, as in a hasty visit. The adverb hastily can simply mean rapidly but is usually used to mean carelessly, rashly, or too quickly. Example: Don’t be too hasty when decorating the cake—take your time and do it properly.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of hasty
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English, from Middle French hasti, hastif; see haste, -ive
Explanation
Hasty means speedy and brash. If you try to make a hasty exit after breaking up with someone, you’ll seem like a jerk. Hasty, meaning “speedy, quick,” first came onto the scene in the mid 14th century. Later, it found itself paired with pudding to form hasty pudding, a dessert that only takes a short amount of time to make. Note that hasty, unlike fast, has negative connotations. If someone accuses you of having completed an assignment in a hasty fashion, it means your work appears careless.
Vocabulary lists containing hasty
A Need for Speed: Synonyms for "Fast"
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Vocabulary from the Songs of The Spice Girls
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"The Jilting of Granny Weatherall" by Katherine Anne Porter
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The EPA soil sampling comes amid mounting pressure from residents and environmentalists who say that a hasty federal cleanup effort had left behind or spread hazardous fire debris.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 2026
Hearts, who had been chasing a first title since 1960, made the decision to make a hasty exit from the stadium, citing a "menacing and threatening atmosphere".
From BBC ● May 17, 2026
The Hearts players and staff made a hasty exit after the game, with some players still in their match kit on the team bus as they headed back to Edinburgh.
From BBC ● May 16, 2026
The horrific allegations against both Gonzales and Swalwell comfortably met the bar for hasty resolution.
From Slate ● Apr. 16, 2026
Laura looked at him all the time she was eating her hasty pudding, because she had heard Pa say to Ma that he was wild.
From "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The FDA reached its decision in 97 days, about 40 percent of the usual timeline for such a review, but wisely refused to be browbeat into a hastier conclusion.
From Washington Post ● Aug. 23, 2021
Other nations, reckoning with their own wrongdoings, have been far hastier to arrive at this point.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 31, 2017
"The Delhi government is already working toward tackling this situation and now that we've picked up this report, the government will take hastier steps to tackle the situation," A.K.
From Reuters ● Feb. 13, 2012
Scarcely were the words out of his mouth than Ridgway was proved a greater exaggerator and hastier reporter than Hanley.
From Time Magazine Archive
She turned the hastier, lest again The prisoner should renew his strain.
From The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott
When one of the creatures got through, Connery beat the hastiest of retreats.
From BBC ● Oct. 31, 2020
Alex Smith beat the hastiest retreat since Xerxes fled to the Hellespont.
From Time Magazine Archive
It was the hastiest state visit the U.S. had ever laid on.
From Time Magazine Archive
The hastiest glance at recent European poetry shows the prominence of the mystery of pain.
From The Arena Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 by B. O. (Benjamin Orange) Flower
She was thankful that Tom and his friend were going back to New Haven that night and would have time for only the hastiest of good-byes.
From Betty Wales Senior by Margaret Warde
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
