Word.ws English Dictionary

handfast

handfast noun: a hold, grasp; custody, power of confining or keeping.

Noun

handfast (plural handfasts)

  1. (obsolete) A hold, grasp; custody, power of confining or keeping.
    • And the remembrancer of her to hold
      The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...
  2. (obsolete) A contract, agreement, covenant; specifically betrothal, espousal.

Verb

handfast (third-person singular simple present handfasts, present participle handfasting, simple past and past participle handfasted)

  1. (transitive) To pledge; to bind.
  2. (Scotland, transitive, archaic or historical except Wicca) To betroth by joining hands, in order to allow for cohabitation before the celebration of marriage; to marry provisionally.
    • No, Sir Priest or Sir Preacher, Catherine is not my wife— […] she is not my wife, but she is handfasted with me, and that makes her as honest a woman. [...] When we are handfasted, as we term it, we are man and wife for a year and a day—that space gone by, each may chuse another mate, or, at their...1820 March, [Walter Scott], chapter XI, in The Monastery. A Romance. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Co., and John...
    • Would the lass but consent to go abroad in the unhallowed place at this awful season and hour of the night, she was as firmly handfasted to the Devil as if she had signed a bond with her own blood; […]1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

Adjective (1)

handfast

  1. (obsolete) Fast by contract; betrothed by joining hands.
    • A vyrgine made handfast to Christ.1546, John Bale, The Actes of Englysh Votaries

Adjective (2)

handfast (comparative more handfast, superlative most handfast)

  1. (rare) Strong; steadfast.

handfast meaning in Urdu

handfast in Urdu

بندھن, حراست, تحویل, بندھن جوڑنا, منگنی کرنا

Forms of handfast

Noun
pluralhandfasts
Verb
third-person singular presenthandfasts
present participlehandfasting
past participlehandfasted
pasthandfasted
Adjective
comparativemore handfast
superlativemost handfast

Origin of handfast

From Middle English hondfast, past participle of Middle English hondfesten (“to betroth”), from Old Norse handfesta (“to strike a bargain, pledge”), itself from hönd (“hand”) + festa (“to fasten, fix, affirm”), perhaps from a Proto-Indo-European root *pHst-.

Calque of German handfest, itself from Hand (“hand”) + fest (“firm, strong”).

Words formed from handfast

Questions about handfast

What does handfast mean?
Handfast means a hold, grasp; custody, power of confining or keeping.
What is handfast in Urdu?
Handfast in Urdu is بندھن, حراست, تحویل. See Handfast meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is handfast?
Handfast can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
What is the plural of handfast?
The plural of handfast is handfasts.

Words near handfast in the dictionary

  1. handers
  2. handers-in
  3. handes
  4. handest
  5. handeth
  6. handfast
  7. handfasted
  8. handfasting
  9. handfastings
  10. handfastly
  11. handfasts

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: handfast (page history and authors); handfast (Urdu Wiktionary) (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: “handfast.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/handfast. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.