Steadfast or Stubborn – a Word History

Hello,

I’m a third of the way through my November writing challenge (32,000 words of “The Librarian’s Secret Diary” my serial about life in a small-town Irish library) and I’m using my own stubborn nature to continue despite other distractions.

I’ve heard all the synonyms for stubborn over the years. Some polite (determined, perseverance, resolute, firm, staunch), some less so (bloody-minded, obstinate), and honestly a bit of stubbornness can be a real boon to any writer on their path to readers.

Snoopy was steadfast in his writing

One which I like is steadfast. It conjures up images of a brave soul on the deck of a ship in a storm, navigating their way to calmer waters in the face of all obstacles. That’s inspiring to me when I’m writing late at night or early in the morning to get my daily word count complete as well as all my regular writing jobs (column, blog, newsletter, editing, promoting my books, running a writing group, radio appearances, articles, research etc.).

Steadfast joined Middle English as stedfast to describe people as stubborn, resolute, fixed in purpose and faith around 1200, but it came from an even earlier word – stedefaest – in Old English with the same meaning so it’s an old word in the language. It was formed by joining stede (place or position) – you would see that also in the idea of a homestead – with fast (or faest).

Although we think of fast meaning quick, in this instance the Old English faest meant something was firmly fixed, constant, secure, strong, or fortified. It probably has a Proto-Germanic origin, from the word fastu (firm) and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European root past (firm, solid).

Other languages also have the idea of being steadfast from very similar origins. In Middle Low German it’s stedevast and in Old Norse it’s stadfastr (firm, faithful, firm in one’s mind).

I think in future I won’t call myself stubborn. I’ll be steadfast in the face of obstacles, even if it’s a word-count target rather than saving my sailing ship from a wild storm at sea.

Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,

Grace (@Wordfoolery) – currently on 10,292 words of my 32,000 target

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