handfast

noun

1. (obsolete)A hold, grasp; custody, power of confining or keeping.

   “And the remembrancer of her to hold The hand-fast to her lord. I have given him that”

2. (obsolete)A contract, agreement, covenant; specifically betrothal, espousal.

verb

1. (transitive)To pledge; to bind.
2. (Scotland, transitive)To betroth by joining hands, in order to allow for cohabitation before the celebration of marriage; to marry provisionally.

   “No, Sir Priest or Sir Preacher, Catherine is not my wife— […] she is not my wife, but she is handfasted with me, and that makes her as honest a woman. [...] When we are handfasted, as we term it, we are man and wife for a year and a day—that space gone by, each may chuse another mate, or, at their pleasure, may call the priest to marry them for life—and this we call handfasting.”

   “Would the lass but consent to go abroad in the unhallowed place at this awful season and hour of the night, she was as firmly handfasted to the Devil as if she had signed a bond with her own blood; […]”

adj

1. (obsolete)Fast by contract; betrothed by joining hands.

   “A vyrgine made handfast to Christ.”

2. (rare)Strong; steadfast.