quicken Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. verb move faster
    speed up; speed; accelerate.
    • The car accelerated
  2. verb make keen or more acute
    whet.
    • whet my appetite
  3. verb give life or energy to
    invigorate.
    • The cold water invigorated him
  4. verb show signs of life
    • the fetus quickened
  5. verb give new life or energy to
    repair; revivify; recreate; reanimate; revive; renovate; vivify; animate.
    • A hot soup will revive me
    • This will renovate my spirits
    • This treatment repaired my health

WordNet


Quick"en transitive verb
Etymology
AS. cwician. See Quick, a.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle quickened ; present participle & verbal noun Quickening
Definitions
  1. 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. Shak.
    Like a fruitful garden without an hedge, that quickens the appetite to enjoy so tempting a prize. South.
  2. 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.
  3. (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. Syn. -- To revive; resuscitate; animate; reinvigorate; vivify; refresh; stimulate; sharpen; incite; hasten; accelerate; expedite; dispatch; speed.
Quick"en intransitive verb
Definitions
  1. 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. Ray.
    And keener lightnings quicken in her eye. Pope.
    When the pale and bloodless east began To quicken to the sun. Tennyson.
  2. To move with rapidity or activity; to become accelerated; as, his pulse quickened.

Webster 1913