Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Haste.
  • noun Specifically In medicine, involuntary hurrying in walking, observed in some nervous diseases.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Haste; hurry.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The involuntary shortening of stride and quickening of gait that occurs in some diseases (e.g., Parkinson's disease)

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun involuntary shortening of stride and quickening of gait that occurs in some diseases (e.g., Parkinson's disease)

Etymologies

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Examples

  • There's also, in some of his works, a sense of festination -- of explosive speed, though that doesn't have quite the same connotation as "to festinate" -- as though the work is hurrying to get through itself before devolving into violent noise.

    "...my music is also seductive, even spiritual" Patrick J. Smith 2008

  • There's also, in some of his works, a sense of festination -- of explosive speed, though that doesn't have quite the same connotation as "to festinate" -- as though the work is hurrying to get through itself before devolving into violent noise.

    Archive 2008-12-01 Patrick J. Smith 2008

  • Were we lyuing, when we made such festination to depart?

    The Palace of Pleasure, Volume 1 William Painter

  • Body movements to counteract the tendency to rigidity in the flexor groups of spinal muscles will be especially useful, as the stiffness of these is one of the causes of displacement forward of the centre of gravity, a displacement which results in the festination symptom usually seen in such cases.

    Fat and Blood An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria John K. [Editor] Mitchell 1871

  • Strive not to run, like Hercules, a furlong in a breath: festination may prove precipitation; deliberating delay may be wise cunctation, and slowness no slothfulness.

    Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 6 Lucia Isabella Gilbert Runkle 1864

  • Strive not to run like Hercules, a furlong in a breath: festination may prove precipitation; deliberating delay may be wise cunctation, and slowness no slothfulness.

    Christian Morals 1605-1682 1863

Comments

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  • There's much that's expressed in a gait.
    We speak by the way we ambulate.
    While quick festination
    Betrays perturbation,
    A saunter asserts the world can wait.

    October 27, 2014