hasta

1. colloquialindicativepresentsingularthird personthird-person singular simple present indicative of hafta: Contraction of has to (“is required to”).

   He hasta visit the doctor.

1. colloquialgoodbye

plural hastas

1. Indian classical danceA hand gesture used to depict the meaning of a song

   A prudent prayer, and a vigorous dance, with many interwoven leaps and twirls and pirouettes, and hastas all around.

   2009 January 21, Joe Fiorito, “Tamil dance fine gesture even for our crop of snow”, in Toronto Star

plural hastae

1. Ancient RomehandwritingA spear carried by early Roman legionaries.

   In the 12th century in Persia and later in Anatolia a new style of monumental kufic becomes the rule, with the tall hastae of the letters plaited.

   1976, Basil Gray, “Introduction to the Exhibition”, in The Arts of Islam: Hayward Gallery, 8 April–4 July 1976, [London]: Arts Council of Great Britain, →ISBN, page 29

   5 more examples

   In Table I the hastae of n and m are regularly vertical and of the same height, while in II a and II b they vary in height and are often out of the perpendicular.

   1897, R[obert] S[eymour] Conway, “356–367 Tabulae Iguvinae”, in The Italic Dialects […], volume I, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: At the University Press, →OCLC, page 402

   On Mamlūk metalware, inscriptions appear not only in continuous and intersecting bands which may occupy a considerable part of an object, but also in a circular arrangement in which the hastae of the letters point towards the centre.

   1984, Eva Baer, “Maʿdin”, in C[lifford] E[dmund] Bosworth, E[meri] van Donzel, B[ernard] Lewis, Ch[arles] Pellat, editors, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, [2nd] edition, volume V (Fascicules 93–94; Maʿalt͟hāyā–al-Mad͟jarra), Leiden: E. J. Brill, →ISBN, page 992, column 1

   The “stem and leaf” motif covering the area between the long hastae of the letters is delineated by a quick curving stroke with curls, “comma-shaped” leaves and dots, which resemble the sprays on Fatimid lustre-wares (fig.2.). […] The long hastae of the letters on the Ḥamā piece are not emphasised by parallel strokes but seem to belong to less elaborate writing styles, while the curling stem between the alif and lām finds its exact parallel on Fāṭimid lustre-painted vessels, of the 11th-12th century.

   1985, Helen Philon, “Stems, Leaves and Water-Weeds: Underglaze-Painted Pottery in Syria and Egypt”, in Julian Raby, editor, The Art of Syria and the Jazīra, 1100-1250 (Oxford Studies in Islamic Art; 1), Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] Oxford University Press for the Board of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, →ISBN, page 114

   In the following chapters of the Literatum Latinarum Mercator then develops a prescriptive guide how to perform the ductus of writing by measuring the individual letters of the alphabet against these ideal proportions of the letter y and analyzing them according to his categorization of the line types into elements (‘hastae’ and ‘codae’), all of which, however crooked they may be, can always be accurately calculated. The cursivization of the hastae, the ligature of the letters by means of hairlines and the spaces separating the letters are most precisely covered by his rules.

   2011 February 15, Sonja Neef, translated by Anthony Mathews, “Before a Line”, in Imprint and Trace: Handwriting in the Age of Technology, London: Reaktion Books, →ISBN, page 54

   The Π of CE 3 has a shorter right hasta and the horizontal bar projects to the right, while in CE 1, the hastae are equal or almost equal in length and the horizontal bar varies, sometimes projecting, sometimes not.

   2011 June 30, Ian S. Moyer, “The story according to Apollonios and Maiistas”, in Egypt and the Limits of Hellenism, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, chapter 3 (The Delian Sarapis aretalogy and the politics of syncretism), footnote 42, page 156