slowly

At a slow or incremental pace but making steady, dependable progress. I've been writing my thesis slowly but surely—it will probably take me all year to finish it, but it's getting there! A: "Hey, how's the new novel coming along?" B: "Ah, slowly but surely!"

Prov. Act quickly, but not so quickly that you make careless mistakes. Jane: Why are you throwing your clothes around the room? Alan: You told me to get my things packed in a hurry. Jane: Yes, but make haste slowly; otherwise we'll have to spend an hour cleaning up the mess you make. I know you want to finish that sweater by Joe's birthday, but you're knitting so fast that you make mistakes. More haste, less speed.

Prov. It may take a long time, but evil will always be punished. Jill: It really doesn't seem right that Fred can be so horrible and dishonest, but he always gets everything he wants. Jane: Be patient. The mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.

slow but unstoppable. Bob's progress on his novel was slow but sure. Nancy is finishing the paint job on her house, slowly but surely.

Also, make it snappy. Hurry up, move or act quickly, as in If you don't make haste we'll be late, or Make it snappy, kids. The first expression was first recorded in Miles Coverdale's 1535 translation of the Bible (Psalms 39:13): "Make haste, O Lord, to help me." The variant dates from the early 1900s and uses snappy in the sense of "resembling a sudden jerk." The oxymoron make haste slowly, dating from the mid-1700s, is a translation of the Latin festina lente. It is used either ironically, to slow someone down (as in You'll do better if you make haste slowly), or to comment sarcastically on a lack of progress (as in So far the committee has been making haste slowly).

One's destiny is inevitable even if it takes considerable time to arrive. For example, I'm sure he'll be wealthy one day, though the mills of the gods grind slowly. This expression comes from ancient Greek, translated as "The mills of the gods grind slowly, but they grind small." In English it appeared in George Herbert's Jacula Prudentum (1640) as "God's mill grinds slow but sure."

Gradual or plodding but certain to finish, as in Slow but sure this book's getting written. This idiom was first recorded in 1562, although the idea is much older. A related phrase appears in the proverb slow and steady wins the race, which is the moral of Aesop's fable about the race between a tortoise and a hare, which stopped to nap during the race and therefore lost.

To move or act swiftly; hurry.