Quicken
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /ˈkwɪkən/
- Rhymes: -ɪkən
Full definition of quicken
Verb
- (transitive, now literary) To give life to; to animate, make alive, revive. from 14th c.
- 1526, William Tyndale, trans. Bible, Luke XVII:Whosoever will goo about to save his lyfe, shall loose it: And whosoever shall loose his life, shall quycken it.
- 1610, , by William Shakespeare, act 3 scene 1The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead,
And makes my labours pleasures ... - SouthLike a fruitful garden without an hedge, that quickens the appetite to enjoy so tempting a prize.
- (intransitive, now literary) To come back to life, receive life. from 14th c.
- (intransitive) To take on a state of activity or vigour comparable to life; to be roused, excited. from 15th c.
- 1910, ‘Saki’, "The Lost Sanjak", Reginald in Russia:The Chaplain's interest in the story visibly quickened.
- (intransitive) Of a pregnant woman: to first feel the movements of the foetus, or reach the stage of pregnancy at which this takes place; of a foetus: to begin to move. from 16th c.
- 2013, Hilary Mantel, ‘Royal Bodies’, London Review of Books, 35.IV:Royal pregnancies were not announced in those days; the news generally crept out, and public anticipation was aroused only when the child quickened.
- (transitive) To make quicker; to hasten, speed up. from 17th c.
- 2000, George RR Martin, A Storm of Swords, Bantam 2011, p. 47:That day Arya quickened their pace, keeping the horses to a trot as long as she dared, and sometimes spurring to a gallop when she spied a flat stretch of field before them.
- (intransitive) To become faster. from 17th c.My heartbeat quickened when I heard him approach.
- 1907, w, The Younger Set Chapter 5, Breezes blowing from beds of iris quickened her breath with their perfume ; she saw the tufted lilacs sway in the wind, and the streamers of rose-tinted wistaria swinging, all a-glisten with golden bees ; … .
- (shipbuilding) To shorten the radius of (a curve); to make (a curve) sharper.to quicken the sheer, that is, to make its curve more pronounced