speed

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   How fast something moves or happens.

   The car was traveling at high speed.

2. 2
   noun

   The quality of moving or doing something quickly.

   The project advanced with surprising speed.

3. 3
   verb

   To move very fast.

   The train sped through the countryside.

4. 4
   verb

   To drive faster than the legal limit.

   He got a ticket for speeding on the highway.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Speed is an Old English word from a Germanic root meaning “prosper” or “succeed,” a sense preserved in Godspeed. Its familiar meaning of rapid movement probably developed through the association of doing something successfully with doing it quickly.

From Middle English sped (“prosperity, good luck, quickness, success”), from Old English spēd (“success”), from Proto-West Germanic *spōdi (“prosperity, success”), from Proto-West Germanic *spōan, from Proto-Germanic *spōaną (“to prosper, succeed, be happy”), from Proto-Indo-European *speh₁- (“to prosper, turn out well”). Cognate with Scots spede, speid (“success, quickness, speed”), Dutch spoed (“haste; speed”), German Low German Spood (“haste; speed; eagerness; success”), German Sput (“progress, acceleration, haste”). Related also to Old English spōwan (“to be successful, succeed”), Albanian…

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary