apace meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

apace

adv

US, UK /əˈpeɪs/

Etymology From Middle English apās (“step by step, slowly; quickly, rapidly; at once, promptly”), from Old French à pas (“at a quick pace”).

Quickly, rapidly, with speed.

Construction of the new offices is proceeding apace.
Gallop apace, you fiery footed ſteedes, / Towards Phœbus lodging, ſuch a Wagoner / As Phaeton would whip you to the weſt, / And bring in Cloudie night immediately.c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 65:

4 more examples

Ow faire Hippolita, our nuptiall houre / Drawes on apace: foure happy daies bring in / Another Moon[…]c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i], page 145:
(To one, it is ten years of years. ... Yet now, and in this place, Surely she leaned o'er me—her hair Fell all about my face. ... Nothing: the autumn fall of leaves. The whole year sets apace.)1850, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, The Blessed Damozel, The Germ; reprinted in Poems [Collection of British and American Authors; 1380], copyright edition, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, 1873, OCLC 933409239, page 2, lines 19–24
The process which, if not checked, will abolish Man, goes on apace among Communists and Democrats no less than among Fascists. […] Once we killed bad men: now we liquidate unsocial elements.1943, C[live] S[taples] Lewis, “The Abolition of Man”, in The Abolition of Man […], New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, published 1947, →OCLC, page 46:
Twilight was coming on apace and a star or two was already out, but the remains of the sunset could still be seen in the west.1954, C. S. Lewis, chapter 1, in The Horse and His Boy, Collins, published 1998: