Hasty means done too quickly to be done well. A hasty decision, a hasty retreat, do not be hasty.
It is almost always critical: hasty implies the speed caused the error. A hasty retreat is a fixed phrase and usually comic. Note haste, the noun, and the proverb more haste, less speed, which means exactly this; hasten, meaning to hurry something along; and hastily, which is common before verbs of writing and arranging — hastily written, hastily arranged.
1adjectivehastyDone too quickly to be done well.
“It was a hasty decision and it took four years to undo.”
synonyms: rushed, precipitate
hasty is a quality of rushing.
Old French hastif comes from a Frankish word meaning violence or vehemence. Haste began as force rather than speed, which is why hasty still suggests something done under pressure.
Frankish
*haifst — violence
Old French
hastif
Middle English
hasty
English, today
hasty
From Middle English hasty, of unknown origin. Likely a new formation in Middle English equivalent to haste + -y, found as in other Germanic languages (Old Frisian hâstich, Middle Dutch haestich (> Dutch haastig (“hasty”)), Middle Low German hastich (“hasty”), German hastig, Danish hastig, Swedish hastig (“hasty”)); otherwise possibly representing an assimilation to the foregoing of Middle English hastive, hastif (> English hastive), from Old French hastif (Modern French hâtif), from Frankish haifst (“violence”), ultimately of the same gem - origin.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA