The answer is APACE, five letters. It means at a quick pace, and hardly anybody uses it outside a puzzle or the set phrase continuing apace. That narrowness is precisely the appeal for constructors: three vowels inside five squares, and a sense no other short adverb quite covers.
A word kept alive by one phrase
Apace belongs to a class of words that dropped out of free use but stayed locked inside a single idiom. You run amok and nothing else. Kith appears only beside kin. Fro exists only in to and fro, shrift only in short shrift, dudgeon only in high dudgeon, bated only in front of breath. Speakers learned the phrase whole, so the word buried in it never had to stay independently meaningful.
Puzzles preserve this stock far better than conversation does, and that is worth treating as a solving habit rather than as trivia. When a short definition asks for a plain everyday idea and no plain everyday word fits the letters, the setter has usually reached into this drawer. EKE, VIM, WREAK and OFT all earn their keep in grids for the same reason apace does.
Borrowed words arrive with their register attached
PRONTO came into American English from Spanish and stayed casual, so it turns up where the surrounding fill is chatty. PRESTO is Italian and does double duty: in music it marks tempo at the fast end of the scale, and in English it is the stage magician’s word before a reveal, which hands setters two unrelated surfaces for one entry. APACE occupies the far end of that range, literary and faintly antique.
Register is a genuine signal rather than a flourish. Read the entries around your slot. A grid written in a breezy voice will take the borrowed informal option where a stiffer one takes the archaic adverb, and noticing that can narrow your choice before a single crossing letter arrives.
Answers ranked by the squares they need
Blank count does most of the sorting on this definition:
| Letters | Answer | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | FAST | Plain, short slots |
| 5 | APACE | The standard entry |
| 6 | ATONCE | Phrase, spaces removed |
| 6 | PRONTO | Informal, borrowed from Spanish |
| 6 | PRESTO | Music or stage magic in the surface |
| 8 | INAFLASH | Long slot phrase |
| 12 | LICKETYSPLIT | Very long slot phrase |
Long slots want a phrase, not a word
English carries an unusual number of idioms for speed, so these definitions throw up multi-word answers more often than most categories do. Written without spaces, INAFLASH and INNOTIME run to eight squares apiece, ATONCE to six, and LICKETYSPLIT to twelve. That last one is a constructor favorite because its letter run is odd enough to pin down everything crossing it.
The practical move on a long across entry clued for speed is to test the phrase shortlist before growing the answer out of crossings. An opening I or an opening L is usually enough to tell you which one you are staring at.
Frequently asked questions
What is the answer to the very quickly crossword clue?
APACE, five letters, in most grids. It is an adverb meaning at a quick pace, and it survives in modern English mainly inside the phrase continuing apace. If your slot holds six squares rather than five, PRONTO, PRESTO and ATONCE are the usual replacements.
Why do puzzles use APACE so often?
Because its shape is useful and its meaning is unambiguous. Five squares holding three vowels sit neatly beside consonant-heavy entries, and no other short adverb carries quite the same sense. Words that survive only inside one fixed phrase tend to end up in grids for exactly this reason.
What fits a long slot clued for speed?
Phrase answers written without spaces. INAFLASH and INNOTIME each take eight squares, ATONCE takes six, and LICKETYSPLIT takes twelve. Run that shortlist against your blank count before trying to build the entry letter by letter, because these phrases rarely emerge from crossings alone.
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