quick – English noun declension

English noun forms of quick

Noun: quick
Singularquick
Pluralquicks

Sample Sentences

  • The works […] are curiously hedged with quick. [1641, John Evelyn, diary entry September 1641:]
  • This test nippeth, […] this toucheth the quick. [1550, Hugh Latimer, Sermon Preached at Stamford, 9 October 1550:]
  • How feebly and unlike themselves they reason when they come to the quick of the difference! [1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):]
  • O see the fate of him whose guard was lowered!—
  • A single misstep and we leave the quick. [1941, Theodore Roethke, “Prognosis”, 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 5:]
  • the quick and the dead
  • Wild bird, whose warble, liquid sweet,
  • Rings Eden thro' the budded quicks [1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto LXXXVIII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:]

Etymology

1. 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.
2. 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. See: Middle English Nouns 'quik', Old English Nouns 'cwic', Dutch Nouns 'kwik', Faroese Nouns 'kvikur', Icelandic Nouns 'kvikur', Greek Nouns 'βίος', Latin Nouns 'vivus', Irish Nouns 'beo'.

Verbs referencing "quick"

Ancient Greek Nouns βίος, Danish Nouns kvæg.