Etymology Dictionary

AGHAST,  struck with horror.  (E.)   Misspelt, and often misinterpreted.   Rightly spelt agast.   [? Spelt agazed in Shak. I Hen. VI, i. I. 126, 'All the whole army stood agazed on him;' evidently with the notion that it is connected with gaze; but see the Note below.]   Probably Shakespeare did not write this line, as he rightly has gasted for 'frightened' in Lear, ii. I. 57; a word which is often now misspelt ghasted.   1. M.E. agasten, to terrify, of which the pp. is both agasted and agast; and examples of the latter are very numerous.   See Mätzner, Altenglische Sprachproben (Wörterbuch), ii. 41.   In Wyclif's Bible, Luke, xxiv. 37, we have 'Thei, troublid and agast,'  where one MS. has agasted.   'He was abasched and agast;'  K. Alisaunder, ed. Weber, l. 224.   'So sore agast was Emelye;' Chaucer, C. T. 2343.   'What may it be That me agasteth in my dreme?' Leg. of Good Wom. Dido, 245.   'The deouel schal ȝet agesten ham' = the devil shall yet terrify them; Ancren Riwle, p. 212.   2. The simple form gasten also occurs.   'Gaste crowen from his corn' = to frighten crows from his corn; P. Plowman, A. vii. 129.—A.S. intensive prefix á- (= G. er-, Goth. us-); and A.S. gǽstan, to terrify, hence to frighten by torture, torment; 'hie gǽston godes cempan gáré and lígé' = they tortured God's champions with spear and flame; Juliana, 17; Grein, i. 374.   The vowel-change in A.S. gǽstan, E.E. gesten, later gasten, is just parallel to that in A.S. lǽstan, E.E. lesten, mod. E. last.   The final t is properly excrescent, just as in our hes-t, behes-t, from A.S. hǽs, a command.   B. Hence the root is an A.S. gǽs-, answering to Goth. geis- or gais-, to terrify, which appears in the compounds us-gaisjan, to make afraid, and us-geisnan, to be amazed; where, by the way, the prefix us- is the same as in E. a-gast.   The primary notion of this gais- is to fix, stick, fasten; hence, to fix to the spot, to root to the spot with terror; cf. Lat. hær-ere, to stick fast, cling; as in 'adspectu conterritus hæsit;'  Verg. Aen. iii. 597; 'uox faucibus hæsit;' Aen. ii. 774; 'Attonitis hæsere animis,' i.e. they were utterly agast; Aen. iii. 529.—✔GHAIS, to stick fast; which appears not only in Goth. us-gaisjan and usgeisnan, and in Lat. hærere, but in the Lithuanian gaisz-tu, to tarry, delay, with its derivatives; Fick, i. 576, ii. 359.   ¶ It will now, perhaps, be perceived that the word agazed, if it be spelt agased, is really a good one, and corresponds to an older form without an inserted t.   Nor is it the only instance; for we find another in 'the were so sore agased' = they were so sorely terrified; Chester Plays, ii. 85.