fasten
Formsfastens, fastening, fastened
- 1To attach or join one thing to another so that it stays securely in place.
Workers fasten the steel beams together with heavy bolts.
He fastened the gate latch to keep the dog inside.
Similarattach, secure, fix, join, connect
Oppositeunfasten, detach, loosen, undo
Note
Built from fast plus the verb-making -en, as in hold fast: to fasten is to make something fast. Old English already had fæstnian. It works with or without an object. You fasten a belt, and a belt fastens. Jonathan Swift stretched it to ideas in 1711, writing of Whig and Tory "with very different ideas fastened to them", a figurative use that still reads naturally today.
- 2To make something, such as a blow, land squarely on someone and take full effect.
The fencer waited for an opening to fasten a decisive thrust.
Before the bouncers arrived, he fastened two hard punches on the man who had shoved him.
Similarland, deliver, plant, inflict
Note
Here the security lies in the impact: what is fastened lands on its target and holds there. The usual frame is fasten something on or upon someone. Shakespeare's Othello carries it past blows, with "if I can fasten but one cup upon him" pressing a drink on a man until it takes effect. It is the same grip as the everyday "attach" sense, aimed at a person rather than at a thing.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English fastenen, from Old English fæstnian, from Proto-West Germanic *fastinōn ("to secure, fasten"). It is equivalent to 'fast' plus the suffix '-en'.