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Slow has the adverb slowly. I tend to use fastly as the adverb for fast.

However, it is underlined in most spell checkers I use, which makes me wonder about the existence of this word.

Is fastly a correct word? If not, what should be used instead, and why is that different from its antonym?

Matt E. Эллен
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Gnoupi
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    No need to apologize, this site is for people like yourself that are interested in improving. The sad fact is that many native English speaks don't understand "trivial" concepts, and don't care about being correct. You should be proud of the fact that you even asked. – Jed Daniels Aug 20 '10 at 01:29
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    Those native English speaks ought to be ashamed of themselves. –  Aug 20 '10 at 02:01
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    Check out this video from Merriam-Webster on flat adverbs: http://www.merriam-webster.com/video/0030-flatadverbs.htm?&t=1312554289 –  Jan 09 '12 at 18:23
  • Related. – tchrist Jan 28 '23 at 16:08

9 Answers9

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There is no need for "fastly" because "fast" is both an adjective and an adverb. So, "I ran fast" is completely correct.

The existence of "fast" as an adverb does not preclude the future development of a word "fastly", but it does hinder it.

One might note that the corresponding adjective "slow" does take the -ly suffix, but this has no impact on the behavior of "fast". (There is also no real reason why, for example, we have warm/warmth, but cool/coolness. Semantically related things sometimes have similar morphological patterns, and sometimes not.)

One interesting thing worth noting (that was brought up in a comment by Jimi Oke) is that there are cases of adjectives with identical adverbs that also have an -ly form; for example, we have "right" and "wrong" as adjectives and adverbs, but we also have "rightly" and "wrongly". In such cases, the -ly form has carved out its own semantic niche; the adverb "right" and the adverb "rightly" cannot be used interchangeably in every situation. I can say "turn right" and "rightly so", but I can't exchange them in either sentence.

With normal adjectives that cannot become adverbs without -ly, usually the -ly just transparently makes the adjective adverbial — it doesn't have its own separate semantic nuances (e.g. "quickly" simply means "in a quick manner").

Kosmonaut
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    Er...I beg to differ. I drove quickly, but the car was fast. Fast is an adjective not an adverb. The adverb is quickly. – Brian Hooper Aug 19 '10 at 22:24
  • You could, however, be stuck fast. I've no idea what part of speech 'fast' is in that context. – Brian Hooper Aug 19 '10 at 22:25
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    As I said, "fast" can be an adjective or an adverb. "The car was fast. The car drove fast." Both are correct. You can even check the dictionary if you don't trust me: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fast . – Kosmonaut Aug 19 '10 at 22:36
  • Indeed, I see no difference between "the car was going fast" and "the car was going quickly." – kitukwfyer Aug 20 '10 at 19:54
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    Imagine if a pedant insisted that you could not say "How fast does this car go?" because you ought to say "How quickly does this car go?" I think "quickly" actually sounds silly there. – Kosmonaut Aug 20 '10 at 20:28
  • Could you say: How quick does this car go? Or should be Quickly? cause quickly sounds silly indeed. – Billeeb Dec 03 '10 at 19:18
  • @Kosmonaut: Indeed, there is no fastly, but I don't quite agree with the reason you give. Is there a rule that says one cannot add -ly to adverbs that are also adjectives? Because, right and wrong are two adverbs that are also adjectives, and -ly can be added to both. – Jimi Oke Jan 27 '11 at 17:32
  • @Jimi Oke: I guess I could have said, "there is no need for 'fastly'". Along the lines of your examples, we also have "first" and "firstly". I think you'll agree, though, that "rightly" and "wrongly" (and "firstly") have their own special domains of use — you can't just choose "right" or "rightly" whenever you want. So, there is no need for "rightly" as the adverb counterpart for "right"; instead it exists because it adds a different nuance of meaning of its own (as opposed to e.g. "quick" and "quickly" which you could say only differ in their part of speech). – Kosmonaut Jan 27 '11 at 19:12
  • @Jimi Oke: I just wanted to add that you make a good observation; definitely worth clarifying! – Kosmonaut Jan 27 '11 at 19:14
  • @Kosmonaut: Thanks :) Oh yes, quick/quickly falls into a different class entirely. So, I'm guessing that's what you based your fast/fast argument on. However, I must confess I am still puzzled by the rest of your answer. What does warm/warmth, etc, have to do with slow/slowly, or the main point of your answer?! This is a genuinely curious question, mind! :) – Jimi Oke Jan 27 '11 at 22:35
  • @Jimi Oke: The point of those examples is that, just because there is a certain morphological pattern for one word, that doesn't mean that word's opposite should have an analogous pattern. That is, just because slow-slowly is a pattern, that doesn't mean that fast can only be an adjective unless it becomes fastly. Make sense? I think I might reword my answer to improve it based on your questions :) – Kosmonaut Jan 27 '11 at 22:43
  • @Kosmonaut: Thanks for your patience! Got it now :) – Jimi Oke Jan 27 '11 at 22:45
  • @Kosmonaut: I just discovered how old this question and your answer were! It came up as one of the active questions today and I erroneously thought you'd just posted your response! Had I known this, I'd have simply let sleeping dogs lie. Thanks for the recognition and for actually taking the time to edit an old answer :) – Jimi Oke Jan 28 '11 at 00:11
  • Are you sure about this? I find "I ran fast" to sound grammatically incorrect, but that may just be the strict (and sometimes wrong) education I was raised on. I wouldn't feel comfortable writing that in a formal situation. –  Jan 28 '11 at 01:47
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    @jjackson: I am 100% certain. Any dictionary will back this up. – Kosmonaut Jan 28 '11 at 01:56
  • so lastly is also word for last? – Java D Nov 28 '13 at 11:09
  • @Brian Hooper I don't know what's happened in the intervening years, so this may not be appropriate. Of course fast is an adjective in I have a fast car / My new car is very fast. But it's the semantically similar adverb in He drives too fast. This may be more informal than He drives too quickly, but is probably more idiomatic. – Edwin Ashworth Mar 10 '15 at 14:49
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The adverb form of fast is irregular. It is one of several exceptions, as is "well" as mentioned by Dena A.

a fast runner   /    run fast
a hard worker   /    work hard
a bad smell     /    smell bad

etc. etc. etc.

About work hard: 'he works hard', in contrast to 'he is hardly working'. Two different meanings.

Community
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    Small note... bad is not an irregular adverb in this case, it is an adjective with irregular verb behavior (see rule 2 of http://www.grammarbook.com/grammar/adjAdv.asp). You could say "smell badly" to talk about being unable to smell properly. – Kosmonaut Aug 21 '10 at 20:09
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Fast is an adverb as well as an adjective, so you wouldn't use fastly. Another common adverb that doesn't follow the pattern of ending in ly is well, not the expected goodly, which is actually an adjective and means a large quantity, e.g. a goodly sum.

MetaEd
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Dena A
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  • Love and lovely follow this pattern as well I guess. (Not too sure, though.) Love is a noun/verb and lovely is an adjective. – Ishita Sinha Jul 05 '17 at 08:08
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Per etymonline, fastly is the 'former adverbial form of fast (adj.), from O.E. fæstlic "firm, fixed, steadfast, resolute;" obsolete in 19c., simple fast taking its place.'

There you go folks, so much for logic...

Marthaª
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Though word fastly used in many places (you can find many results by searching Google) but still it is not correct.
For reference see the definition of word fast from WikiDictionary

See the post wrong / fast-- adverbs with no 'ly' ending to learn more.

chanchal1987
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This reminds me of how small children extrapolate grammatical constructions in seemingly logical ways, except English is not always that logical.

So my daughter (3¾) will correctly say "I colour in neatly" or "I'll do it carefully", but then also "It comes lastly" "I can hop bigly" "Go farly" "Squeeze me hardly" etc.

francois
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Oh, fastly is a word alright. It just happens to be an obsolete one.

Barrie England
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"Fast" can also mean to hold onto in a strongly, and "fastly" is the adverb of that word. E.g. "The crew held fastly onto the hand-rail of the boat as it rolled in the storm"

Phillip Ngan
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    I wouldn't say that, and google gives 118 hits for "held fastly", as against 298 000 for "held fast".

    Another adjective which is also an adverb is "hard". "Hardly" exists, but has a completely different meaning.

     – Colin Fine Aug 20 '10 at 12:24
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    Sorry, but "fastly" just isn't a word. You drive fast. You hold fast to the handrail of the boat. You hold fast to an idea. You can also drive quickly, but that's the same as driving fast. – Dena A Feb 07 '11 at 18:50
  • As said from Kosmonaut too, fast is already an adverb, and the suffix -ly is used to create an adverb from an adjective. – apaderno Feb 07 '11 at 18:51
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This is emblematic of a misunderstanding that gives rise to forms truly abominable, begetting debellished hypercorrections thusly seen in casual prose all over the internet todaily.

The problem is that people oftenly get this mistaken notion that adverbs need to end in ‑ly. I know no likely explanation for this blunder, but they stilly do it anywaily.

Howeverly certain they are of this non-rule, nothing could be furthlier from the truth, and the soonlier they realize this, the morely their writing stands to gain; it sure won’t happen beforely.

This semisilly answer is intended to come across friendlily, not meanly or worsely.

tchrist
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  • Ha ha ha ha! Awesome answer! (I know comments like this are against the rule, but I just couldn't help appreciating your witty answer!) – Ishita Sinha Jul 05 '17 at 08:12