hastily
Americanadverb
-
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.
-
without sufficient care or attention.
This book feels far less potent, and far more hastily written, than the earlier work.
-
unnecessarily quickly or rashly; impetuously.
Six months earlier, she had hastily married a former high school classmate.
Usage
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.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of hastily
First recorded in 1275–1325; hasty ( def. ) + -ly
Explanation
When you do something hastily you rush through it in a hurried manner. If you write an essay hastily, don't expect an A. Haste is speed, so if you do something hastily, you're just doing it too fast. When a job should take time, like building a house, but it's done hastily, something often goes wrong. If you hastily leave the dinner table without explaining yourself, people will think you're rude.
Vocabulary lists containing hastily
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber
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Mr. Popper’s Penguins
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Prisoner B-3087
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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.
Much of the matter in these early episodes is assigned to establishing the potato-potahto dichotomy of their hastily entered relationship.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026
He was part of a hastily arranged “reform” slate meant to steer the union past a corruption scandal that sent two former UAW presidents to federal prison.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2026
When organisers eventually found them a plane at the last minute, the senior squad was so annoyed it refused to board and Burkina ended up hastily despatching an under-23 team.
From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026
During a week-long hearing, force lawyer Aaron Rathmell told the panel Smith, 52, and Comotto, 37, "acted, hastily, harshly and lost control".
From BBC ● Oct. 6, 2026
Naima let her eyes dwell on the fading patterns that Mother and Rashida had hastily invented for the contest.
From "Rickshaw Girl" by Mitali Perkins
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
