hastening

noun

"hastening" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“hastening” is uncommon English (frequency #66,713 among 2,646 “H” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#66,713
frequency rank, English
2,646
“H” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The act of speeding up; a growing faster.

Corpus desk

Index EN-hastening · hastening · English

hastening · rank #66,713 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #66,713
  • LEN-LONG 9 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 2,646
  • PHOTO-FINISH Harrisonburg

Nearest frequency peer: Harrisonburg (-2 rank slots)

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Long-tail ranks near “hastening”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “hastening” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for hastening
PropertyValue
Headwordhastening
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters9
Frequency rank#66,713
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “hastening” in English

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right).hasteningfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Rare peers in the same band: “Harrisonburg” (#66,711), “headwind” (#66,715), “Hertha” (#66,717). Among 2,646 “H” headwords, “hastening” is #66,713. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

hastening is uncommon English at frequency #66,713 among 2,646 “H” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The act of speeding up; a growing faster.".

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for hastening, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is hastening, spelled H-A-S-T-E-N-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    The act of speeding up; a growing faster.

Recorded use

Wiktionary examples

These source excerpts show how hastening appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Miss D. had found that regular blinking, or a loud-ticking watch, or horizontal lines or marks on the ground, etc., similarly served to pace her, and to prevent the incontinent hastenings and retardations which otherwise marred her ambulation.
  2. The secret seems to be a very precise control of the subtle slackenings and hastenings of tempo that are essential to Scriabin's idiom[…]

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "hastening"?
"hastening" is spelled H-A-S-T-E-N-I-N-G.
What does "hastening" mean?
As a noun, "hastening" means: The act of speeding up; a growing faster.
What language does "hastening" come from?
"hastening" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "hastening", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list