posthaste •
\POHST-HAYST\ • adverb : with all possible speed
Examples:
"You
must leave posthaste," Virginia theatrically admonished her guests,
"or you'll miss your ferry!"
"Yes, West Palm
Beach commissioners should green-light the chief’s efforts to address the issue
posthaste." — Palm Beach Post, September 3, 2014
Did you know? In the
16th century, the phrase "haste, post, haste" was used to inform
"posts," as couriers were then called, that a letter was urgent and
must be hastily delivered. Posts would then speedily gallop along a route, with
a series of places at which to get a fresh horse or to relay the letter to a
fresh messenger. Shakespeare was one of the first to use a version of the
phrase adverbially in Richard II. "Old John of Gaunt ... hath sent post
haste / To entreat your Majesty to visit him," the Bard versified. He also
used the phrase as an adjective (a use that is now obsolete) in Othello:
"The Duke ... requires your haste-post-haste appearance," Lieutenant
Cassio reports to the play's namesake. Today, the word still possesses a
literary flair attributable to the Bard.
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