What does festination mean?
Festation is a neurological sign in which a person's walking becomes involuntarily faster and their steps shorter, producing a distinctive shuffling, hurrying gait that the individual cannot easily restrain. It is most closely associated with Parkinson's disease, though it can appear in other movement disorders that affect the brain's control of locomotion. Clinically, festination matters because it increases the risk of falling and serves physicians as a marker of disease progression; treatments such as medication adjustment and gait training aim to moderate it. The word derives from the Latin festinari, 'to hasten', and entered English via the noun festinatio, meaning haste. Although rare outside clinical settings, festination is a precise, vivid term that captures a striking phenomenon: a body propelled into ever-quicker motion by its own nervous system, even as the mind tries to slow down.
nounAn involuntary quickening and shortening of walking steps, so that a person appears to hurry or shuffle forward increasingly fast while losing control of their gait; a characteristic symptom of Parkinson's disease and some other neurological disorders.
- A neurological symptom in which walking steps become progressively quicker and shorter, causing an uncontrolled hurrying forward, classically associated with Parkinson's disease.
"The neurologist noted festination in the patient's gait as he hurried across the examination room."
"As her Parkinson's progressed, festination caused her to break into tiny, uncontrollable shuffling steps whenever she started walking."
"Physical therapy aims to reduce festination by teaching patients deliberate pacing strategies."
Rarely pluralized; the term is nearly always used as an uncountable mass noun referring to the symptom in general.
"The study recorded festinations across multiple patients with advanced parkinsonism."
People with festination literally can't stop themselves from speeding up — the harder they try to walk normally, the faster their feet race beneath them.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of festination
Festation comes from the Latin verb festinare, meaning 'to hurry or hasten', through the noun festinatio, 'haste'. English borrowed the term in its medical sense by the nineteenth century, when clinicians needed a label for the accelerating gait later recognized as a hallmark of parkinsonism. The adjective festinate shares the same Latin root, though broader English relatives are limited because the root itself was narrow in usage.
Related word forms
How festination is actually used
A technical term used almost exclusively in medicine and neurology; it would sound out of place in everyday conversation, where speakers describe the behavior rather than name it.
Easily confused with festination
Despite a superficial visual similarity, constipation refers to difficulty passing stool, whereas festination is the involuntary hastening of gait seen in parkinsonism.