Word.ws English Dictionary

fastly

fastly adverb: in a secure or firm manner; securely.

Adverb (1)

fastly (comparative more fastly, superlative most fastly)

  1. In a secure or firm manner; securely
    • We tied the rope fastly this time; we didn't want it to get away again.
    • Before them was a door which apparently led into the grand apartments; this was fastly secured, but it yielded to their united strength, and they entered a lofty hall, whose concave top was supported by pillars.1843, Thomas Archer, Roderick Dhu, Clan Alpine's Chief, or, the Scottish outlaw

Adverb (2)

fastly (comparative more fastly, superlative most fastly)

  1. (nonstandard) quickly
    • A reuerend man that graz’d his cattell ny, / Sometime a bluſterer that the ruffle knew / Of Court of Cittie, and had let go by / The ſwifteſt houres obſerued as they flew, / Towards this afflicted fancy faſtly drew: / And priuiledg’d by age deſires to know / In breefe the grounds and motiues of her...1609, William Shakespeare, “A Louers Complaint”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC, signatures K2, recto – K2...
    • Another time, my Mother seeing them come fastly to her house, my brother gave the key of his desk to my sister, bidding her convey the money somewhither; […]a. 1661, Isaac Tullie, A Narrative of the Siege of Carlisle, in 1644 and 1645. […], Whitehaven, Cumbria: Michael Moon’s Bookshop, published 1840 (1988 facsimile), →ISBN, page 13

Examples of fastly in a sentence

  • Yes, ’tis the hand / Of death I feel press heavy on my vitals, / Slow sapping the warm current of existence. / My moments now are few—The sand of life / Ebbs fastly to its finish.a. 1807, Henry Kirke White, “Written in the Prospect of Death”, in The Remains of Henry Kirke White, of Nottingham, […], volume II, London...
  • During these twelve days the life of the child was fastly on the wane; and all this time Emily tended him with an assiduity and tender solicitude that never flagged.1859, Kinahan Cornwallis, chapter IX, in A Panorama of the New World. […], volume I, London: T[homas] C[autley] Newby, […], page 207:
  • Determined in his death, and chasing him, he ran fastly to the 'Mission House,' and under Mrs.1885, The Missionary Herald of the Baptist Missionary Society, page 162:
  • Seryozha went to the house of Alexei Vassileievitch, and there he was—the saddlemaker, you remember?—making bets with all his friends that he could drink more beer more fastly than they could drink.1930, Stella Benson, chapter II, in The Far-away Bride, New York, N.Y.; London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, pages 31–32:

Synonyms of fastly

Forms of fastly

comparativemore fastly
superlativemost fastly

Origin of fastly

From Middle English fastly, fastliche, festliche, from Old English fæstlīċe (“firmly, constantly”), from Proto-West Germanic *fastulīkē, from Proto-West Germanic *fastulīkê (“securely, firmly”); equivalent to fast + -ly.

From Middle English fastliche, fastly; equivalent to fast + -ly.

Questions about fastly

What does fastly mean?
Fastly means in a secure or firm manner; securely.
How do you use fastly in a sentence?
Yes, ’tis the hand / Of death I feel press heavy on my vitals, / Slow sapping the warm current of existence. / My moments now are few—The sand of life / Ebbs fastly to its finish.
What part of speech is fastly?
Fastly is an adverb.

Words near fastly in the dictionary

  1. fastish
  2. Fastiv
  3. fastlike
  4. fastloader
  5. fastloaders
  6. fastly
  7. fastmine
  8. fastmined
  9. fastmines
  10. fastmining
  11. fastmoving

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fastly (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “fastly.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/fastly. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.