quick
Meanings
- Moving with speed, rapidity or swiftness, or capable of doing so; rapid; fast.
- Occurring in a short time; happening or done rapidly.
- Lively, fast-thinking, witty, intelligent.
- Mentally agile, alert, perceptive.
- Easily aroused to anger; quick-tempered.
- Alive, living.
- At the stage where it can be felt to move in the uterus.
- Pregnant, especially at the stage where the foetus's movements can be felt; figuratively, alive with some emotion or feeling.
- Flowing, not stagnant.
- Burning, flammable, fiery.
- Fresh; bracing; sharp; keen.
- productive; not "dead" or barren
- Quickly, in a quick manner.
- Answer quickly.
- Raw or sensitive flesh, especially that underneath finger and toe nails.
- Plants used in making a quickset hedge
- The life; the mortal point; a vital part; a part susceptible to serious injury or keen feeling.
- Synonym of living (“those who are alive”).
- Quitchgrass.
- A fast bowler.
- To amalgamate surfaces prior to gilding or silvering by dipping them into a solution of mercury in nitric acid.
- To quicken.
- A surname.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
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.