hastens

Hastens is the third-person singular present tense of the verb hasten. To hasten means to cause something to happen sooner or to move or proceed more quickly.

As a transitive verb, it can take a direct object: for example, “The new policy hastens the project’s completion.” It can also be used in the phrase “hasten to” followed by an infinitive, as in “She hastened to apologize,” where the subject acts quickly to perform the action.

In modern English, hasten is relatively formal and literary; in everyday speech, speakers often substitute faster or quicker verbs such as “speed up” or “accelerate.” Hastening can convey urgency, inevitability, or voluntariness, and the term frequently appears in formal writing, religious phrases, or historical texts.

The noun form has the common word “haste,” and related verb forms include hasten, hastened, and hastening. The word is etymologically linked to the noun haste and derives from Middle English, with influences from Old French; its ultimate origins relate to the broader family of speed-related terms.

See also: haste, hurry, expedite, accelerate.