QUICKENING • DICTIONARY ONE.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

... Quickening his steps, he turned in the direction of the Capitol Square, which stretched, like the painted curtain of a theatre, across the end of the street. A singular intuition, a presentiment, had come to him that if he could sustain this impulse, this tide of energy until ...

— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow

... said Lionel, but so listlessly that all Sir Oliver's quickening enthusiasm perished again at once and no more ...

— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini

... huge mass of engine and plow gathered headway, the pounding exhausts quickening until they blended in a continuous roar. The little Irishman stayed himself with a foot against the boiler brace; the fireman ducked under the canvas curtain and clung to the coal bulkhead; and Ford held on ...

— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde

... being spoken, his courage oozed away and anti-climax, followed. He paled and trembled, yet he knelt on until she should bid him rise, and furtively he watched her face. He saw it darken; he saw the brows knit; he noted the quickening breath, and in all these signs he read his doom ...

— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini

... and then slipped from him, and was lost. He did not pause there, but strode on. But just there, what had been frightful became hideous. For at once he was possessed with the conviction that the thing that lurked at a distance behind him was quickening its movement, and coming up to seize him. The dreadful fancy stung him like a goad, and, with a start, he accelerated his flight, horribly conscious that what he feared was slinking along in the shadow, close to the dark bulks of the houses, ...

— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

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