kanji - About ご[馳走]{ちそう}: two “runs” would give you “a feast”?

ご[馳走様]{ちそうさま}でした is the greeting that people say after being offered a meal while ご馳走 by itself means “a feast”.

I looked up this word in the dictionary to learn more about the kanji characters. It turned out that both 馳 and 走 have the meaning of “run”, or more specifically 馳 is “to gallop” and 走 is “to run”.

So how come two “run” kanji characters give the meaning of “a feast”? Would anyone explain the etymology of the word?

P.S. ご is just a prefix you add to a noun to make it sound more polite.

Answer

The original meaning is not a feast. 馳走 means to prepare food and treat guests, and also to run around doing a bunch of stuff. ご馳走 means that someone has worked hard and treated their guests well.