speed

SPEED, v.i. pret. and pp. sped, speeded. [The L. expedio may be from the same root, which signifies to drive, to hurry, of the family of L. peto.]

1. To make haste; to move with celerity.

2. To have success; to prosper; to succeed; that is, to advance in one's enterprise. He that's once demi'd will hardly speed. Those that profaned and abused the second temple, sped no better.

3. To have any condition good or ill; to fare. Ships heretofore in seas like fishes sped, The mightiest still upon the smallest fed.

SPEED, v.t.

1. TO dispatch; to send away in haste. He sped him thence home to his habitation.

2. To hasten; to hurry; to put in quick motion. -But sped his steps along the hoarse resounding shore.

3. TO hasten to a conclusion; to execute; to dispatch; as, to speed judicial acts.

4. To assist; to help forward; to hasten. -With rising gales that sped their happy flight.

5. To prosper; to cause to succeed. May heaven speed this undertaking.

6. To furnish in haste.

7. To dispatch; to kill; to ruin; to destroy. With a speeding thrust his heart he found. A dire dilemma! either way I'm sped; If foes, they write if friends they read me dead.

Note In the phrase, "God speed," there is probably a gross mistake in considering it as equivalent to "may God give you success." The true phrase is probably "good speed; good, in Saxon, being written god. I bid you or wish you good speed, that is, good success.

SPEED, n.

1. Swiftness; quickness; celerity; applied to animals. We say, a man or a horse runs or travels with speed; a fowl flies with speed. We speak of the speed of a fish in the water, but we do not speak of the speed of a river, or of wind, or of a falling body. I think however I have seen the word applied to the lapse of time and the motion of lightning, but in poetry only.

2. Haste; dispatch; as, to perform a journey with speed; to execute an order with speed.

3. Rapid pace; as a horse of speed. We say also, high speed, full speed.

4. Success; prosperity in an undertaking; favorable issue; that is, advance to the desired end. O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day. Gen. 24. This use is retained in the proverb, "to make more haste than good speed," and in the Scriptural phrase, "to bid one good speed," [Not God speed, as erroneously written.]

speed

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