handfast

plural handfasts

1. obsoleteA hold, grasp; custody, power of confining or keeping.

   And the remembrancer of her to hold The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that

   1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]

2. obsoleteA contract, agreement, covenant; specifically betrothal, espousal.

present singular third person handfasts · participle present handfasting · participle past handfasted · past handfasted

1. transitiveTo pledge; to bind.
2. Scotlandtransitivearchaic or historical except WiccaTo betroth by joining hands, in order to allow for cohabitation before the celebration of marriage; to marry provisionally.

   Would the lass but consent to go abroad in the unhallowed place at this awful season and hour of the night, she was as firmly handfasted to the Devil as if she had signed a bond with her own blood; […]

   1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide

   1 more example

   No, Sir Priest or Sir Preacher, Catherine is not my wife— […] she is not my wife, but she is handfasted with me, and that makes her as honest a woman. [...] When we are handfasted, as we term it, we are man and wife for a year and a day—that space gone by, each may chuse another mate, or, at their pleasure, may call the priest to marry them for life—and this we call handfasting.

   1820 March, [Walter Scott], chapter XI, in The Monastery. A Romance. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Co., and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, pages 311–312

1. obsoleteFast by contract; betrothed by joining hands.

   A vyrgine made handfast to Christ.

   1546, John Bale, The Actes of Englysh Votaries

comparative more handfast · superlative most handfast

1. rareStrong; steadfast.