QUICKENING • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Quickening

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/kwˈɪkənɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Quicken v. t. (past & past part. quickened; pres. part. quickening)

To make alive; to vivify; to revive or resuscitate, as from death or an inanimate state; hence, to excite; to, stimulate; to incite. "The mistress which I serve quickens what's dead." "Like a fruitful garden without an hedge, that quickens the appetite to enjoy so tempting a prize."

To make lively, active, or sprightly; to impart additional energy to; to stimulate; to make quick or rapid; to hasten; to accelerate; as, to quicken one's steps or thoughts; to quicken one's departure or speed.

(Shipbuilding) To shorten the radius of (a curve); to make (a curve) sharper; as, to quicken the sheer, that is, to make its curve more pronounced.

Synonyms: To revive; resuscitate; animate; reinvigorate; vivify; refresh; stimulate; sharpen; incite; hasten; accelerate; expedite; dispatch; speed.

Quicken v. i.

To come to life; to become alive; to become vivified or enlivened; hence, to exhibit signs of life; to move, as the fetus in the womb. "The heart is the first part that quickens, and the last that dies." "And keener lightnings quicken in her eye." "When the pale and bloodless east began To quicken to the sun."

To move with rapidity or activity; to become accelerated; as, his pulse quickened.

noun

Quickening n.

The act or process of making or of becoming quick.

(Physiol.) The first motion of the fetus in the womb felt by the mother, occurring usually about the middle of the term of pregnancy. It has been popularly supposed to be due to the fetus becoming possessed of independent life.

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Etymology of 'Quickening'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Quickening" Quotes from Famous Books

... Then quickening their steps they passed the three men, but turned back immediately, and D'Artagnan walked straight up to the butcher and touching him on the chest with the tip of ...

— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... attended to what was due to others, and to her own character in their opinion. Her conviction of being right, however, was not enough to restore her composure; till she had spoken to Miss Tilney she could not be at ease; and quickening her pace when she got clear of the Crescent, she almost ran over the remaining ground till she gained the top of Milsom Street. So rapid had been her movements that in spite of the Tilneys' advantage in the outset, they were but just turning into their lodgings ...

— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... the effort was made at Presburg to resist all claims but those of one race. The same quickening breath which had stirred the Magyar nation to new life had also passed over the branches of the Slavic family within the Austrian dominions far and near. In Bohemia a revival of interest in the Czech language and literature, which began about 1820, had in the following ...

— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... his pink wreaths and his white robe, and watched the quickening pinkiness of the East. And slowly the great circle of the temple filled with white-robed folk, all carrying in their hands the faint pinkiness of the flowers which we nowadays ...

— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit

... glow? Say, what retards, amidst the summer's blaze, Th' autumnal bulb, till pale, declining days? The GOD OF SEASONS; whose pervading power Controls the sun, or sheds the fleecy shower: He bids each flower His quickening word obey, Or to each lingering ...

— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

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