quick
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /kwɪk/
ipa: [kʰw̥ɪk]
rhymes: -ɪk
Forms: form: quicker
form: more quick
form: quickest
form: most quick
form: kwik
Etymology: From Middle English quik, quic, from Old English cwic (“alive”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwiku, from Proto-Germanic *kwikwaz, from Proto-Indo-European *gʷih₃wós (“alive”), from *gʷeyh₃- (“to live”), *gʷeyh₃w- (“to live”).
Cognate with Dutch kwik, kwiek, German keck, Danish kvik (“quick, quick-witted”) and Danish kæk (“bold; spirited”), Swedish kvick; and (from Indo-European) with Ancient Greek βίος (bíos, “life”), Latin vivus, Lithuanian gývas (“alive”), Latvian dzīvs (“alive”), Russian живо́й (živój), Polish żywy (“alive”), Welsh byw (“alive”), Irish beo (“alive”), biathaigh (“feed”), Northern Kurdish jîn (“to live”), jiyan (“life”), giyan (“soul”), can (“soul”), Sanskrit जीव (jīva, “living”), Albanian nxit (“to urge, stimulate”). Doublet of jiva.
Senses: examples: text: I ran to the station – but I wasn't quick enough.
text: He's a quick runner.
text: The quickest and nimblest were probably the oxycones, throwing themselves through the water like discuses.
ref: 2017, Danna Staaf, Squid Empire, ForeEdge, →ISBN, page 87:
glosses: Moving with speed, rapidity or swiftness, or capable of doing so; rapid; fast.
examples: text: That was a quick meal.
text: Veronica Ripley, 32, often speaks to friends about the role that video games played in her trans awakening: “I would try to explain it away, saying that I was playing the girl character because she had a smaller hitbox or quicker kill animations,” she said, referring to in-game advantages.
ref: 2023 December 27, Zachary Small, “Video Games Let Them Choose a Role. Their Transgender Identities Flourished.”, in The New York Times:
synonyms: ready
glosses: Occurring in a short time; happening or done rapidly.
examples: text: You have to be very quick to be able to compete in ad-lib theatrics.
glosses: Lively, fast-thinking, witty, intelligent.
examples: text: My father is old but he still has a quick wit.
glosses: Mentally agile, alert, perceptive.
examples: text: She has a very quick temper.
text: He is wont to be rather quick of temper when tired.
text: The bishop was somewhat quick with them, and signified that he was much offended.
ref: 1549, Hugh Latimer, The Sixth Sermon Preached Before King Edward, April 6 1549:
glosses: Easily aroused to anger; quick-tempered.
raw_tags: of people or tempers
examples: text: 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:
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 2 Timothy 4:1, column 2:
text: Man is no star, but a quick coal / Of mortal fire.
ref: 1633, George Herbert, The Temple:
text: The inmost oratory of my soul,
Wherein thou ever dwellest quick or dead,
Is black with grief eternal for thy sake.
ref: 1874, James Thomson, The City of Dreadful Night, section X:
glosses: Alive, living.
examples: text: 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.
ref: Section 316, Penal Code (Cap. 224, 2008 Ed.) (Singapore)
glosses: At the stage where it can be felt to move in the uterus.
raw_tags: of a foetus
examples: text: she's quick; the child brags in her belly already: tis yours
ref: c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Loues Labour’s Lost”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
text: Invention sleeps within a skull
No longer quick with light,
The hive that hummed in every cell
Is now sealed honey-tight.
ref: 1941, Theodore Roethke, “Death Piece”, in Open House, New York, N.Y.: Alfred A[braham] Knopf, →OCLC; republished in The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke, London: Faber and Faber […], 1968, →OCLC, page 4:
text: When sentenced she sought to avoid hanging by declaring herself with child – ironically, given her favourite deception – but a ‘jury of Matrons’ found her not quick.
ref: 2012, Jerry White, London in the Eighteenth Century, Bodley Head, published 2017, page 385:
glosses: Pregnant, especially at the stage where the foetus's movements can be felt; figuratively, alive with some emotion or feeling.
glosses: Flowing, not stagnant.
raw_tags: of water
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1922, E[ric] R[ücker] Eddison, The Worm Ouroboros: A Romance, London: Jonathan Cape […], →OCLC, page 18:
glosses: Burning, flammable, fiery.
examples: text: […] the ayre is quicke there, / And it perces and ſharpens the ſtomacke,
ref: c. 1607–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, [George Wilkins?], The Late, and Much Admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: […] [William White and Thomas Creede] for Henry Gosson, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
glosses: Fresh; bracing; sharp; keen.
topics: business
mining
glosses: productive; not "dead" or barren
raw_tags: of a vein of ore
qualifier: crosswording
glosses: Not cryptic.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2022, Anna Bondo Medhus, Lone Klinkby, Engineering Geophysics (page 227)
glosses: Being a distinctively sensitive kind of glaciomarine clay that may behave like a watery fluid under stress.
Synonyms: sense: moving with speed
word: fast
word: speedy
word: rapid
word: swift
sense: occurring in a short time
word: brief
word: momentary
word: short-lived
word: ephemeral
sense: fast-thinking
word: bright
word: droll
word: keen
word: witty
word: intelligent
sense: easily aroused to anger
word: hotheaded
sense: easily aroused to anger
word: rattish
sense: easily aroused to anger
word: short-tempered
sense: easily aroused to anger
word: snippish
sense: easily aroused to anger
word: snippy
sense: alive, living
word: extant
word: live
word: vital
word: alive
sense: pregnant
word: expecting
word: gravid
word: with child
word: pregnant
sense: flowing
word: running
word: fluent
word: fluminous
word: flowing
Derived terms: a quick drop and a sudden stop
bisquick
double-quick
get-rich-quick
in quick sticks
in quick succession
kill-me-quick
kiss-me-quick
lightning-quick
make quick work of
olive quick decline syndrome
overquick
quick and dirty
quick-and-dirty
quick as a flash
quick as a fox
quick as a wink
quick as lightning
quick as thought
quick as winking
quick bankruptcy
quickbeam
quickborn
quick bread
quick buck
quick-change artist
quick consumption
quick-draw
quickdraw
quick-drying
quicken
quick-fire
quick fix
quick-freeze
quick-froze
quick-frozen
quick fuck
quick-handed
quick-handedness
quickhatch
quick-hearted
quickie
quickish
quickle
quick light
quicklike
quick lime
quicklime
quick link
quickload
quickly
quick match
quickness
quick off the mark
quick on his feet
quick on one's feet
quick on the draw
quick on the uptake
quick pitch
quickplay
quick ratio
quick read
quick release skewer
quick response team
quicksand
quicksave
quickscope
quickselect
quick-setting
quickshaw
quick shifter
quickshifter
quicksighted
quick-sighted
quicksilver
quicksmart
quick smart
quicksome
quicksort
quickstart
quickstep
quick study
quick-thinking
quick time
quick time event
quick-tongued
quick vinegar
quick water
quickwater
quick-witted
quick-wittedly
quick-wittedness
quickwork
quick-write
quicky
real quick
squid
superquick
Tennessee quick step
the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
ultraquick
unquick