2884: Godspeed and [secular?] Speed Nov 13, 2024

The phrase ‘Godspeed’ might sound like a strange compound, or as with ‘goodbye’, a clipping from a longer, and more overtly religious phrase. The answer is somewhere in the middle.

Godspeed does literally come from ‘God + speed’ but this was when ‘speed’ meant something else. In Old English, ‘spēd’ meant ‘success’, definitely Germanic but also probably related to the Latin ‘spēs’ meaning ‘hope’. This word overtime experienced semantic narrowing, moving from any type of success, to success in work and travel, to efficient and most importantly fast activity. A similar sort of semantic narrowing occurred in the Russian cognate спеши́ть (speshíty) meaning ‘to hurry’. 

The original meaning is retained in ‘Godspeed’ but since most people will be unaware of this earlier meaning, it is somewhat confusing, as an abbreviated phrase for “[may] God give you speed”, what would now be, ‘Godsuccess’.