The speed in Godspeed had nothing to do with quickness when it first showed up in Anglo-Saxon times almost 1,300 years ago. The noun speed (spelled spoed in Old English), originally meant success, prosperity, good fortune, profit, advancement, and furtherance. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) cites this early example written around the year 725, of Latin and Old English terms, as “Successus, spoed.” The verb speed, which showed up in the late 900s, meant to succeed or prosper. The dictionary’s earliest citation is from The Battle of Maldon, an Old English poem dating from 993. The citation in Modern English…
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