QUICK
What does "QUICK" mean?
Moving or done with speed; fast.
Meanings
- Moving fast or taking only a short time. She made a quick dash to the corner shop.
- Prompt to understand, think, or respond. He has a quick mind for numbers.
- The tender, sensitive flesh below the nails or beneath a wound. She bit her nails down to the quick.
- Living; alive. The phrase 'the quick and the dead' means the living and the dead. archaic
Did you know?
- 'Quick' once meant 'alive', not 'fast': that older sense survives in 'the quick and the dead', in 'quicksilver' (living silver, i.e. mercury), and in 'cut to the quick' - the living flesh under your nails.
Word origin
From Old English 'cwic' meaning 'living, alive', from a Proto-Germanic root related to Latin 'vivus' (alive); the sense shifted from 'lively' to 'moving fast'.
Remember it
QUICK starts the same way as QUIVER - both snap into motion in an instant.
A little poem
Once the word meant 'alive'-
and isn't that the same thing,
to move and to live?
haiku
Wordplay
- Old English speakers used 'quick' to mean 'alive'. Modern life sped that up considerably.
What it teaches
To be quick once meant simply to be alive; speed and life were the same word for a reason.
Quick facts
What does QUICK mean?
Moving or done with speed; fast.
Is QUICK a valid word?
Yes — QUICK is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is QUICK?
QUICK has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does QUICK come from?
From Old English 'cwic' meaning 'living, alive', from a Proto-Germanic root related to Latin 'vivus' (alive); the sense shifted from 'lively' to 'moving fast'.
What can QUICK teach us?
To be quick once meant simply to be alive; speed and life were the same word for a reason.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.