hasty
Done too quickly and without thinking.
- Making a hasty exit, Sam grabbed his sister's shoes instead of his own.
- The hasty repair with sticky tape lasted five minutes before the puppet's arm fell off again.
Similar: rushed, quick, speedy
hasty or rash?
Hasty is about speed. Rash is about ignoring what happens next.
Most children use these as if they were the same word, and in a comprehension paper that is half a mark gone.
Hasty is simply too fast. You can be hasty and get away with it entirely — grabbing your sister's shoes on the way out of the door because yours are upstairs. No harm done, just not much thought.
Rash carries the consequence with it. A rash decision is one where the thing you failed to consider is coming for you later. Hasty describes how you acted; rash describes what it is going to cost.
Both words, side by side
rash
Acting too quickly without thinking about what might happen.
- Diving into the pond fully dressed was a rash decision he regretted immediately.
- Spending all his birthday money in the first shop was a rash move Milo soon regretted.
Similar: hasty, careless, reckless
Why it costs marks
When a passage calls a character's decision rash, the writer is usually signalling that it goes wrong later. A child reading it as merely quick loses the warning the writer planted.
Definitions and example sentences on this page are the ones a child sees inside Wordrealm, taken from our list of over 1,100 words. It is free to browse, with nothing to sign up for.
Sitting the 11+ in Kent, Medway or Buckinghamshire?
Plain-English guides to each test, from the councils’ own pages: Kent Test · Medway Test · Bucks Secondary Transfer Test