QUICKENING • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • 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

... at the time of feeling the bodily activities in general are affected. Changes occur in heart beat, breathing; various glandular secretions are affected, the digestive organs respond. In this general quickening of bodily activity we have reason to believe that the nervous system partakes, and things become impressed more readily. Thus the feeling of recognition that accompanies recall is responsible for one of the benefits of reviews. At such a time material once memorized becomes tinged with ...

— How to Use Your Mind • Harry D. Kitson

... started. Suppose we talk about something else; Mrs. Grove, as a topic, is pretty well exhausted." Fanny, narrow-eyed, relapsed into an intent silence. She faded from his mind, her place taken by Savina. Immediately he was conscious of a quickening of his blood, the disturbed throb of his heart; the memory of delirious hours enveloped him in a feverish mist more real than his wife sitting before him with a ...

— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer

... in fact not only the power of refreshing and delighting us, they have also the power,—such is the strength and worth, in essentials, of their authors' criticism of life,—they have a fortifying, and elevating, and quickening, and suggestive power, capable of wonderfully helping us to relate the results of modern science to our need for conduct, our need for beauty. Homer's conceptions of the physical universe were, I imagine, grotesque; but really, under the shock of hearing from modern science that "the world ...

— English Prose - A Series of Related Essays for the Discussion and Practice • Frederick William Roe (edit. and select.)

... Acharnian Muse, fierce and fell as the devouring fire; sudden as the spark that bursts from the crackling oaken coal when roused by the quickening fan to fry little fishes, while others knead the dough or whip the sharp Thasian pickle with rapid hand, so break forth, my Muse, and inspire thy tribesmen ...

— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... can," says Mr. Molyneux, throwing back his head and quickening his pace. "But you needn't have got so very intimate. We could have done very ...

— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

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