Literary notes about fast (AI summary)
The word "fast" wears many hats in literature, functioning both to denote speed and to express a sense of firmness or fixedness. It can refer to rapid movement or quick action, as in characters falling fast asleep ([1]) or hurrying along on a journey ([2], [3], [4]), while also conveying the idea of being securely attached or immovable—consider an anchor made fast ([5]) or ideas that hold fast in one’s mind ([6], [7]). In some contexts it even steps into the realm of dietary practice, marking periods of abstention from food ([8], [9]). This linguistic versatility allows "fast" to enrich descriptions of physical movement, emotional states, and even ritual observance.
- I had nothing left for it but to fall fast asleep, which I did with all Speed.
— from The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America by Thomas Jefferson - Buldeo hobbled away to the village as fast as he could, looking back over his shoulder in case Mowgli should change into something terrible.
— from The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling - Luke, dear man, drive as fast as you can, do!"
— from Project Gutenberg Compilation of Short Stories by Chekhov by Anton Pavlovich Chekhov - The boys applied whip and spur, the waiters shouted, the hostlers cheered, and away they went, fast and furiously.
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens - Here will I make fast Mine anchor, and escape them at the last In Athens' wallèd hill.—But ere the end 'Tis meet
— from Medea of Euripides by Euripides - But some portions of it somehow always stuck so fast, that the denunciators have been vain to postpone the prophecy of refundment to a late posterity.
— from The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2 by Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb - “Nay, sir, he's no gift at stringin' the words together wi'out book; he'd be stuck fast like a cow i' wet clay.
— from Adam Bede by George Eliot - On the third day of his fast, he found himself entirely freed of his complaint; but refused taking sustenance.
— from The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by T. Smollett - The morning being disagreeably cold we remained and took break-fast.
— from The Journals of Lewis and Clark, 1804-1806 by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis
