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quick¹

  • /kwɪk/
  • [kʰw̥ɪk]

Rhymes with -ɪk

Where it comes from

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *gʷeyh₃-

Proto-Indo-European *-wós

Proto-Indo-European *gʷih₃wós

Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz

Proto-West Germanic *kwiku

Old English cwic

Middle English quyk

English quick

From Middle English quik, quic (“living, alive, active”), from Old English cwic (“alive”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwiku (“alive, lively quick”), from Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz (“alive, lively, quick”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷih₃wós (“alive”), from *gʷeyh₃- (“to live”), *gʷeyh₃w- (“to live”). For semantic development, compare lively.

Cognate with Dutch kwik, kwiek (“lively, quick”), German keck (“sassy, cheeky”), Danish kvik (“lively, quick-witted, quick”), kvæg (“cattle”), Faroese kvikur (“quick”), Icelandic kvikur (“lively, quick”), Norn kvikk, hwikk (“living, swarming, teeming”), Norwegian kvikk (“quick, lively, quick-witted”), Swedish kvick (“quick, witty”), and also (from Indo-European) with Greek βίος (víos, “life”), Latin vivus (“alive”), Lithuanian gývas (“alive”), Latvian dzīvs (“alive”), Russian живо́й (živój, “alive, lively, quick”), Polish żywy (“alive”), Welsh byw (“alive”), Irish beo (“alive”), biathaigh (“to feed”), Northern Kurdish jîn (“to live”), jiyan (“life”), giyan (“soul”), can (“soul”), Sanskrit जीव (jīva, “alive”), Albanian nxit (“to urge, stimulate”). Doublet of jiva.

adjective quicker · more quick · quickest · most quick · kwik

  1. Moving with speed, rapidity or swiftness, or capable of doing so; rapid; fast. I ran to the station – but I wasn't quick enough.
  2. Occurring in a short time; happening or done rapidly. That was a quick meal.
  3. Lively, fast-thinking, witty, intelligent. You have to be very quick to be able to compete in ad-lib theatrics.
  4. Mentally agile, alert, perceptive. My father is old but he still has a quick wit.
  5. Easily aroused to anger; quick-tempered. She has a very quick temper.
  6. archaic Alive, living. I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Ieſus Chriſt, who ſhall iudge the quicke and the dead at his appearing, and his kingdome:
  7. archaic At the stage where it can be felt to move in the uterus. Whoever does any act under such circumstances that if he thereby caused death he would be guilty of culpable homicide, and does by such act cause the death of a quick unborn child, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 10 years, and shall also be liable to fine.
  8. archaic Pregnant, especially at the stage where the foetus's movements can be felt; figuratively, alive with some emotion or feeling. she's quick; the child brags in her belly already: tis yours
  9. archaic Flowing, not stagnant.
  10. archaic Burning, flammable, fiery. And it seemed to me that the dream smote the roof above my bed, and the roof opened and disclosed the outer dark, and in the dark travelled a bearded star, and the night was quick with fiery signs.
  11. obsolete Fresh; bracing; sharp; keen. […] the ayre is quicke there, / And it perces and ſharpens the ſtomacke,
  12. productive; not "dead" or barren
  13. Not cryptic.
  14. Being a distinctively sensitive kind of glaciomarine clay that may behave like a watery fluid under stress. Note that quick clay is a subet of brittle material; all quick clay is brittle, but not all brittle clay is quick.) Glaciomarine clay turns into quick clay after extensive pore water leaching by ground- and rainwater.

Similar: speedy, rapid, swift, momentary, short-lived, droll, keen, intelligent, live, vital, gravid, with child

adverb quicker · quickest · kwik

  1. Quickly, in a quick manner. Get rich quick.
  2. Answer quickly. Quick, how do you spell 'Krabs'?

noun quicks · kwik

  1. Raw or sensitive flesh, especially that underneath finger and toe nails.
  2. Plants used in making a quickset hedge The works […] are curiously hedged with quick.
  3. The life; the mortal point; a vital part; a part susceptible to serious injury or keen feeling. This test nippeth, […] this toucheth the quick.
  4. archaic, with definite article Synonym of living (“those who are alive”). the quick and the dead
  5. Quitchgrass. Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet, Rings Eden thro' the budded quicks
  6. A fast bowler.

verb quicks · quicking · quicked · kwik

  1. transitive To amalgamate surfaces prior to gilding or silvering by dipping them into a solution of mercury in nitric acid.
  2. archaic, poetic, transitive To quicken. I rose as if quicked by a spur I was bound to obey.

Quick²

proper noun Quicks

  1. A surname.

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