hasty
/ˈheɪsti/adjective
hasty is spelled H-A-S-T-Y: 5 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 19,825th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, hasty means “Acting or done in haste; hurried or too quick; speedy due to having little time” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in hasty?
| Letters | 5: H-A-S-T-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.9 times per million words; the 19,825th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is hasty?
Hasty appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 19,825th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce hasty?
- /ˈheɪsti/
Hasty has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-hasty.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hasty
- hastier comparative
- hastiest superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hasty mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Acting or done in haste; hurried or too quick; speedy due to having little time.
Without much thinking about it they made a hasty decision to buy it.
- 2
Made in haste.
Sommer Hony, or hasty hony, made in thirty dales after the tenth of June.
- 3
Ripening or coming to maturity early.
- 4
Eager or impatient to act or get something done.
- 5
Characterized by undue quickness of action, and thus lacking careful thought or consideration; rash, precipitate.
a hasty decision, a hasty assertion
- 6
archaicSpeedy, quick, rapid (without necessarily lacking time).
- 7
Irritable, irascible; quickly or easily excited to anger.
his hasty temperament
- 8
Heavy, violent.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hasty in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense acting in haste; being too hurried or quick:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | hâtif |
| German | hastig, eilig |
| Portuguese | apressado, precipitado |
| Spanish | apresurado, de prisa, arrebatado, atropellado, presuroso, precipitado |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hasty come from?
From Middle English hasty, of obscure origin. Likely a new formation in Middle English equivalent to haste + -y, found as in other Germanic languages (Old Frisian hâstich, Middle Dutch haestich (> Dutch haastig (“hasty”)), Middle Low German hastich (“hasty”), German hastig, Danish hastig, Swedish hastig (“hasty”)); otherwise possibly representing an assimilation to the foregoing of Middle English hastive, hastif (> English hastive), from Old French hastif (Modern French hâtif), from Frankish *haifst (“violence”), ultimately of the same Germanic origin.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).