to make haste slowly
- idiom
- Formal
:
apresurarse despacio
- "Make haste slowly."
Examples
-
In times of stress, it is important to make haste slowly to ensure good decisions.
-
When planning the project, we decided to make haste slowly to avoid mistakes.
-
My grandmother always advised to make haste slowly when facing difficult choices.
Synonyms
3
7.5
Do something slowly on purpose and without hurry
1
7.6
To do something slowly without hurrying, often slower than others expect
To do something slowly and carefully without hurrying
Antonyms
How Careful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'make haste' (to hurry) with 'slowly', producing a paradoxical instruction that roughly means 'hurry carefully' or 'be quick but cautious'. While a learner who knows the parts may guess there is a contrastive or ironic meaning, the proverb-like, archaic wording and the non-literal juxtaposition make the exact sense not fully predictable without exposure.
Etymology
Make haste slowly may come from an old image of a rider who tries to make haste but keeps the horse moving slowly by holding the reins, so the rider moves quickly without losing control. That's why it means 'to hurry but be careful'.