Meanings
alternative post-haste · alternative post haste · alternative archaic postehaste · alternative archaic poste-haste
- datedformalnot comparableQuickly, as fast as someone travelling post; with great speed.
It is imperative that you finish your task posthaste.
1 more example
"Sasi cannot last through the night." These words from his physician, and the spectacle of my friend, now reduced almost to a skeleton, sent me posthaste to Serampore.
1946, Paramahansa Yogananda, “Chapter 17”, in Autobiography of a Yogi
alternative post-haste · alternative post haste · alternative archaic postehaste · alternative archaic poste-haste
- alternativeuncountableAlternative spelling of post-haste.
"And this, I take it, Is the main motive of our preparations The source of this our watch, and the chief head Of this post-haste and rummage in the land."
c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals), page 1, lines 103-106
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
From the former instruction on letters ‘haste, post, haste’, later reinterpreted as a compound of post + haste.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
posthaste. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/posthaste
“posthaste.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/posthaste. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “posthaste,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/posthaste.
Source: posthaste on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.