fasting

[ fast, fahst ]

SEE DEFINITION OF fasting

verbgo without food

Synonyms for fasting

MOST RELEVANT

Antonyms for fasting

MOST RELEVANT

EXAMPLES FROM THE WEB FOR FASTING

In prayer and penance and fasting he would find help and consolation.

But the results of his fasting were the reverse of his expectations.

There's nothing but prayer and penance and fasting left to us, is there?

You will need strength and courage, and neither is possible to a fasting body.

They had done penance enough, fasting and waiting and standing all day long.

He is an invalid, and is quite exhausted with fasting and fatigue.

Her eyes were overlarge from fasting as they hung on the face of the big captain.

I have made this anniversary a day of fasting for many a year back.

There's eight or nine at laste, and it is'nt fresh and fasting either they are.

When he was not fasting, none but the plainest food passed his lips.

WORD ORIGIN

Old English fæst "firmly fixed, steadfast, secure, enclosed," probably from Proto-Germanic *fastuz (cf. Old Frisian fest, Old Norse fastr, Dutch vast, German fest), from PIE root *past- "firm" (cf. Sanskrit pastyam "dwelling place").

The adverb meaning "quickly, swiftly" was perhaps in Old English, or from Old Norse fast, either way developing from the sense of "firmly, strongly, vigorously" (cf. to run hard means to run fast; also compare fast asleep), or perhaps from the notion of a runner who "sticks" close to whatever he is chasing.

The sense of "living an unrestrained life" (usually of women) is from 1746 (fast living is from 1745). Fast buck recorded from 1947; fast food is first attested 1951. Fast-forward first recorded 1948. Fast lane is by 1966; the fast track originally was in horse-racing (1934); figurative sense by 1960s. To fast talk someone (v.) is recorded by 1946.